The Canterbury Songs

Travel back in time to the fairytale town of Canterbury, in 16th century England. A landscape so breathtaking that, around the year 1400, it inspired the medieval writer Geoffrey Chaucer to write his famous work The Canterbury Tales. Drawing on Chaucer’s epic book, conductor Peter Phillips and the Netherlands Chamber Choir perform the most beautiful madrigals and motets from that era. A programme interwoven with newly written miniature compositions by English composer William Knight.

Canterbury was the birthplace of some of the greatest English Renaissance composers: Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Tallis, and John Ward. Like Ward, William Knight is both composer and singer. His choral works are performed in England and the Netherlands, and as of 2014 he is one of the core members of the Netherlands Chamber Choir. Peter Philips is a specialist in Renaissance music and founder of the choir The Tallis Scholars, which excels in this repertoire.