The Telling

A different concert experience

About

The Telling has a growing reputation for creating intimate, staged concerts to bring early and medieval music off the page and reach wider audiences. We create a different concert experience, combining ancient song, ballads and upbeat dances with new writing, narrative, readings or film. Sometimes we often perform moving around the audience, using lighting and/or candlelight.

• "imaginative and eclectic" The Guardian, Fiona Maddocks

Formed in 2009, we draw from a pool of leading musicians who perform for the Society of Strange & Ancient Instruments, I Fagiolini, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Carnival Band and The Dufay Collective.​​

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The Telling has performed 9 times at Brighton Early Music Festival and is resident at Stroud Green Festival. Recent engagements include Buxton International Festival, Music at Oxford, Little Missenden Festival, Keele Arts, Colchester Early Music Series, Kingston Early Music and Totnes Early Music Festival.​

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• "...beguiling and eclectic, Siren-like voices... the fervent, florid chants fo Hildegard of Bingen - so fragrant you can almost smell them... There is an ardour to these performances that is hard to resist."  BBC Music Magazine

The group has appeared on BBC Radio 3's In Tune and Woman's Hour and, in December 2018, on Radio 4's flagship show Saturday Live with the Reverend Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir.  The Telling's CD Gardens of Delight was released on First Hand Records in 2018 and second CD
Secret Life of Carols was released in November 2019, reaching number 25 in the Classical Chart, securing accolades including David Mellor (Classic FM) calling it his "absolute favourite" 2019 Christmas Album and being selected for Best Christmas Albums in The Guardian, BBC
Music Magazine, The Daily Mail and Classic FM.

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• “an unexpected delight from beginning to end, and really strongly recommended” Classic FM Online & Daily Mail, David Mellor 

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Aiming to transform access to medieval music in England, The Telling is establishing a series of residencies initially targeting Liverpool, Hastings, Worthing and Wolverhampton. Recent engagements included Walthamstow Early Music and spearheading Liverpool's first Early Music Festival in 2019 (a second is planned for 2020) plus our 10-date 2019 Christmas tour including to Stratford-upon-Avon, Lewes, Liverpool, Hastings, Hove Folkestone, Wolverhampton, Kingston and
Lympstone, Devon.

Photo: Robert Piwko

News

Our Secret Life of Carols tour is funded by Arts Council England.

Our Empowered Women tour (Vision, Into the Melting Pot and Unsung Heroine)  is funded by Arts Council England, The Golsoncott Foundation, Unity Theatre Trust and The Marchus Trust.

The Marchus Trust.

Our Hildegard and Beatriz de Dia shows (Vision and Unsung Heroine) are funded by The Ambache Charitable Trust.