NOTE: Advance sales for this concert are now closed, but there are plenty of tickets available on the door. Please come for 7:00pm to be sure of a place. See you there!

From musical conundrums that must be solved to be sung to tales of witty characters riddling their way out of trouble, – or into a lover’s bed! – Cambridge Timeline Choir take on the full spectrum of riddles in song, in a vocal pageant of puzzles at Emmanuel United Reformed Church on Saturday 14th July. The widespread, perhaps even universal, art of riddling has been a part of human culture for at least as long as writing can attest, and this concert celebrates the way in which the ingenious practice has enriched intellectual and musical life in the British Isles. Tracing the tradition back to the riddles and kennings of the Anglo-Saxon world, the programme meanders into the mysteries of the Middle English lyric and embraces the challenge of the renaissance musical enigma, before pursuing the twisting and turning narratives of English folk ballads all the way to the present day. The choir mingle the medieval and modern, singing new works by composers Kerry Andrew, Iain Russell and Timeline Choir conductor Stef Conner alongside pieces by Thomas Morley, Richard Sampson and John Dunstable, as well as several centuries of beautiful traditional songs, collected and preserved by the local poet John Clare and composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, among others. Favourites like Scarborough Fair and I Gave my Love a Cherry can be heard alongside lesser-known songs like the Maid of Ocram and Captain Wedderburn’s Courtship. All are welcome to come and be both perplexed and delighted by this feast of musical mystery.

Image (c) The British Library Board: MS Royal 11 E. XI, f. 3