"CARNIVAL OF THE SEASONS"

Vivaldi - Four Seasons interspersed with a variety of seasonal pieces by Biber, Corelli, Couperin and Van Eyck

Piers Adams - Recorders
Julia Bishop - Violin
Angela East - Cello
Howard Beach - Harpsichord

Vivaldi's Four Seasons as you have never heard them before! Red Priest employs a dazzling array of baroque ‘affects' and theatrical effects to bring these pieces vividly to life. Piers Adams has adapted the violin solo part to his plethora of recorders, occasionally even playing two at once, and acting out the roles of sleeping shepherds, drunken harvesters, chirruping birds and skating children as he plays. The concertos are interspersed with a variety of seasonal pieces by Biber, Corelli, Bull, Couperin and Van Eyck.

Red Priest is one of the major success stories on the international early music scene today. Named after the flame-haired priest, Antonio Vivaldi, this extraordinary English ensemble has redefined the art of baroque music performance, combining the fruits of extensive research with swashbuckling virtuosity, creative re-composition, heart-on-sleeve emotion and compelling stagecraft. The group performs largely from memory, allowing an operatic level of
Freedom and interaction.

Formed in 1997, Red Priest now gives over 70 concerts a year in some of the most prestigious venues in Europe, Australia and especially the USA together with Radio and TV broadcasts and a series of CD recordings including "Priest on the Run," "Nightmare in Venice," and "The Four Seasons." International music critics have described the Red Priest style as "electrifying," "sheer daring," "immaculately forged," "sonically supercharged," "brilliant and inspired," "deliciously twisted"-but the group's extravagantly baroque ethos is perhaps best summed up in the words of English musicologist and broadcaster George Pratt: "If nobody goes over the top, how will we know what lies on the other side?"

The launch of Red Priest's "Red Hot Baroque Show" - a dramatic marriage of baroque instrumental wizardry with modern stage and lighting technology took place in February 2005, and a major TV documentary for the South Bank Show (ITV 1) was broadcast in April 2005.

www.redpriest.co.uk