Musician Robert Hollingworth, best known for his directorial work with the brilliant ensemble I Fagiolini, has decided to set some of the most famous love poems ever written to contemporary music. Howevere, there is a twist: All the works will be performed on instruments popular at the time of Elizabeth I and her successor, King James.


Singers on the album will include folk star Eliza Carthy, and they are all backed by musicians playing replica instruments such as lutes, a type of 16-string cello called a lirone and a massive stringed instrument called a theorbo. Among the musicians involved in the project is drummer Geoff Dugmore, who dropped his rock and roll roots (having played with Rod Stewart and Tina Turner) to play renaissance drums on an album which has taken six months to record.

The arrangements on the album, which were developed by Hollingworth, have not changed any of Shakespeare's words but have repeated some lines and moved others. The sonnets include 154 poems, and were first published in 1609, just a few years before Shakespeare's death.

The album, called The Sonnets, set to be released on April 23 -- Shakespeare's birthday. Mr Hollingworth says he thinks the venture would have a certain "curiosity value" but expect it to be liked by everyone from pop music fans to poetry-lovers.

Musician Robert Hollingworth, best known for his directorial work with the brilliant ensemble I Fagiolini, has decided to set some of the most famous love poems ever written to contemporary music. Howevere, there is a twist: All the works will be performed on instruments popular at the time of Elizabeth I and her successor, King James.


Singers on the album will include folk star Eliza Carthy, and they are all backed by musicians playing replica instruments such as lutes, a type of 16-string cello called a lirone and a massive stringed instrument called a theorbo. Among the musicians involved in the project is drummer Geoff Dugmore, who dropped his rock and roll roots (having played with Rod Stewart and Tina Turner) to play renaissance drums on an album which has taken six months to record.

The arrangements on the album, which were developed by Hollingworth, have not changed any of Shakespeare's words but have repeated some lines and moved others. The sonnets include 154 poems, and were first published in 1609, just a few years before Shakespeare's death.

The album, called The Sonnets, set to be released on April 23 -- Shakespeare's birthday. Mr Hollingworth says he thinks the venture would have a certain "curiosity value" but expect it to be liked by everyone from pop music fans to poetry-lovers.

Come each November, I seem to undergo a slow transformation; the island music which lilts across my backyard pool and the bottles of ice-cold Corona quickly give way to ancient music and dark ales as the holiday season begins to take hold. During the winter months, an idle night will often find me seated in the dining room, listening to old madrigals or ancient drinking songs of one sort or another, trying various ales out in an effort to decide what to serve at Christmas.


I've recently come across a new (to me) ensemble, New York Polyphony, which clearly has staked a claim to accompany those efforts this season. The group came together in 2006, and their debut CD, I Sing the Birth, was released on Avie Records in 2007. That disk gained universal praise, and for good reason - the group's clear, rich and engaging a capella sound is well-suited to the works they have chosen to perform. Indeed, the ensemble, which includes Tenor Geoffrey Silver, countertenor Geoffrey Williams, baritone Scott Dispensa and bass-baritone Craig Phillips takes on a wide range of music, from medieval chant to 21st-century liturgical compositions.

The group recently finished a number of Midwest and Rocky Mountain region dates in September, and is next set to appear at the First Presbyterian Church in Atlanta on November 22 and in New York City on December 12th. New York Polyphony is also set to release a CD of Elizabethan-inspired music recorded at Manhattan's Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in spring 2010.

To hear some of this great music, visit the group's website or listen on line at Lala.

Many people might think that a Tudor house museum would be a quiet place, filled with tapestries and the echoes of madrigals in the air. Well, this is one Tudor Revival house that's seen some rock and roll...the place where the Allman Brothers Band founded their "Southern Rock" sound, the place where the song "Ramblin' Man" was penned and the last place Duane Allman visited before dying in a motorcycle crash in 1971.


The Big House in Macon, Georgia - home of the band lived when its fame took off back in the early 1970s, has been a spot where music lovers flocked during pilgrimages over the last few decades. Now, the three-story Tudor Revival house where the band got its start is set to become a museum with the help of many dedicated fans who have spent years collecting memorabilia and renovating the building.

The 6,000-square-foot house, which was built in the early 1900s, became the band's home in 1970 after bassist Berry Oakley and his wife, Linda, rented it for the musicians and their families. They called it the "Big House" because it was far larger than any other place they had ever lived before.

The museum is scheduled to open in December with a fanfare that is expected to draw thousands of rock fans from across the globe to Macon to honor the band. "It was never meant to be just a house with a number of things hanging on the walls but to be active in promoting music in the community," said Kirsten West, the managing director of the Big House Foundation. "For now, renovations are going, but a big sign in the front yard declares what it will be: "Allman Brothers Band Museum." To read more, go HERE.