Coming to the Blackfriars on Sunday, October 25, 7:30pm

The City Musick

The City Musick, based in London, is an ensemble formed by leading early music specialist William Lyons to explore the diverse repertoire performed by "waits" - professional musicians employed in towns and cities throughout Renaissance Europe. The emphasis is on music performed in London, that "flower of cities all," from the period 1500-1700.

Their program will be entitled "The Topping Tooters of the Town - Music of The City Waits 1500-1700."

The original city waits were nightwatchmen who sounded the hours. Gradually they shed their ancillary function and became professional minstrels, gaining their own guild charter in 1500. Waits were wind players first and foremost and thus this concert is a representation of the versatility of the wait as much in the instruments played as in the breadth of repertoire in the 16th and 17th centuries. Featuring cornetts, sackbuts, dulcian, shawms, flutes, recorders, crumhorns, bagpipes and organ plus reader, the concert contains music for ceremony, civic procession, sophisticated masque and theatre pieces as well as popular dance and song for performance in tavern or communal hall.

This special concert is $20 for all seats, general admission, no advance reservations. Tickets will be available at the door.