Bellot Ensemble - Venice to London, in music and memory

The Bellot Ensemble are an impressive young early music group who use historical performance practice to explore 17th century repertoire. The last year has seen them selected for New Generation Baroque Ensemble, a prestigious development scheme led by BBC Radio 3, the Royal College of Music, and the National Centre for Early Music and for the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme 2025-26. So we are very excited to have three of their number join us for this Salon Music concert - Lucine Musaelian - Voice & Viola da gamba, Edmund Taylor - Violin and Daniel Murphy - Theorbo & Lute.
The ensemble are supported by the Continuo Foundation.

Venice to London, in music and memory

Tonight's programme draws a line between two musical cultures. In Venice, we hear vivid contrasts, fluid forms, and vocal expressivity in the works of Cavalli, Strozzi, Pandolfi, Fontana, and Marini. In London, the mood shifts. Music becomes more introspective, shaped by dance, counterpoint, and finely measured speech. From Locke and Purcell to Dowland, Hume, and Byrd, these pieces reflect a different way of thinking. Yet echoes of Italian style remain, travelling not through scores but through memory, imitation, and exchange.

PROGRAMME

Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger - Libro quarto d’intavolatura di chitarrone - Taccata Prima
Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli - Sonate a violino solo - Sonata Seconda ‘La Cesta’
Francesco Cavalli - Xerse, Act I Scene I - Sinfonia & “Ombra mai fu” arr.
Giovanni Battista Fontana - Sonate a I, II, III per il Violino - Sonata Seconda
Giuseppe Cenci - “Fuggi, fuggi, fuggi da questo cielo” arr.
Barbara Strozzi - Cantate, ariette, e duetti - “Amor dormiglione” arr.
Biagio Marini - Sonate, symphonie, canzoni - Sonata terza variata per il violino
Barbara Strozzi - Are - “Che si può fare” arr.
Interval
Henry Purcell - “She loves and she confesses” arr.
Matthew Locke - Consorts of Two Parts for several friends - Suite No. 7 in C minor/Major
John Dowland - Preludium & The Frog Galliard
Tobias Hume - The First Part of Ayres, French, Polish and Others - Captaine Humes Pavan
Nicholas Lanier - Selected Ayres and Dialogues - “No more shall meads” arr.
Henry Eccles - Premier livre de sonates à violon seul et la basse - Sonata Undecimo
William Byrd - “John come kiss me now” arr.

SUPPER:

The concert will be followed by a buffet supper referencing 17th century Italian grand dining!

TICKET 'PRICE':

Because we are not a public venue we cannot 'sell' tickets. Instead we ask you to make a donation - suggested minimum £35 per ticket.
Of this, £5 from each ticket will go to the Camden Music Trust. The Trust supports music in Camden schools with particular emphasis on children who might not otherwise have access to instruments or music lessons.
The remaining £30 enables us to pay our musicians a reasonable fee with any surplus going towards the cost of supper and wine.

ABOUT THE PLAYERS:

Edmund Taylor 

Edmund is a violinist specialising in Historical Performance and founder and director of the Bellot Ensemble. Edmund performs regularly across the UK and Europe as a violinist and leader for other period instrument ensembles, such as Armonico Consort and Ensemble OrQuesta, playing in such venues as the Royal Albert Hall and Southbank Centre. Edmund features as a soloist on the newly released Armonico Consort Signum Classics release of their CD of F.Scarlatti works. 
Edmund also enjoys film and TV work, working as musical supporting artist, recording artist and musical advisor on the films Emma and Napoleon and The Great tv series, under the management of ‘Music in Vision’

Lucine Musaelian

Lucine Musaelian is an Armenian-American viola da gamba player, singer, and composer. She graduated from Yale University in 2020 with a B.A. in Music. In July 2022, Lucine completed her M.A. in Historical Performance at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, where she studied viola da gamba with Paolo Pandolfo and voice with Rosa Dominguez. She continued her viol studies at the Royal Academy of Music, where she is now a Royal Academy Chamber Fellow with the duo Intesa, which specialises in self-accompaniment and multi-genre performance. Her recent performances include a concert in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Night Shift series, with Phantasm and Dunedin Consort and with the BBC Philharmonic in a performance of J.S.Bach’s St. John Passion.

​Daniel Murphy

Daniel specialises in performing a variety of plucked-stringed instruments and enjoys a solo career as well as collaborating with many different singers and instrumentalists. Inspired by the great lute players of the past, historical accuracy is at the heart of his music-making. As a young guitarist, Daniel Murphy studied at the Junior Guildhall Music Department and then at the Royal College of Music studying Classical Guitar. During the first two years of his degree, he gradually transitioned to the historical performance department and in his third year, he became RCM’s first ever undergraduate principal-study theorbo player, studying with Jakob Lindberg. 

Daniel’s freelance work includes collaborating with ensembles such as Ex-Cathedra, Armonico Consort, Fiori Musicali, London Baroque Orchestra and The Bellot Ensemble. As a lutenist, he regularly performs lute song with numerous singers including Emma Kirkby, Mary Bevan and Hugh Cutting.