Children's Programmes

Drake's Progress
The musical encounters of an Elizabethan adventurer

Sir Francis Drake, explorer, pirate and national hero, completed his famous voyage around the world in 1581. Unbelievably, he insisted on making room aboard his cramped ship for four professional musicians. Drake's Progress contrasts this tiny fragment of Elizabethan musical life with the very different sounds of the shores of Africa and the New World, where the astonished sailors described instruments and practices still found today. Their descriptions are narrated alongside performances on the instruments themselves in a musical odyssey that ranges from dancing in the Canary Isles to the great Spanish Armada of 1588.

Around the World with Sir Francis Drake
Workshop

Join Sir Francis Drake - Tudor explorer, soldier, adventurer and pirate - and sail with him in a musical recreation of his famous voyage around the world in 1577. Beginning with the four musicians he insisted on taking with him, we introduce a huge array of unusual and exotic instruments and invite you to sing, dance and play along with not just the Tudors but also the new sounds they discovered on the unknown shores of Africa and South America.

Sara and Jon are both members of Sirinu, one of Britain's most consistently successful Early Music groups who have tured all over the UK as well as in Africa, Asia and South America. Drake's Progress was recently awarded an Educational Tour of over 50 workshops in Yorkshire and the West Country by the National Early Music Centre in York.

Plagues and Pestilences!
Medieval Music Workshop 1066-1400

Explore the world of medieval England from the time of the Norman Conquest to the Deadly Plague. Sirinu lead you on a journey of discovery, singing and dancing rounds, caroles, pilgrim songs and brawls. The basis of so much early music was the drone, and Sirinu - armed with early instruments including harp, hurdy-gurdy, ud, bells, gittern, shawms, dulcimer and percussion - teach you how to create your own simple drone-based piece. For special Christmas workshops, Sirinu lead children in their own simple costume version of a medieval Mummer's play.