Counter tenor Iestyn Davies, famous on both sides of the Atlantic for his role in Farinelli and the King, opens London Unwrapped with a feast of Handel’s London altos. In collaboration with Harry Bicket and The English Concert he has devised a programme that takes us through Handel’s different London venues: opera theatre, churches and private houses.

Davies will perform music written for both London’s castrati and female altos, including arias from operas such as Giulio Cesare and Alcina, and powerful oratorios such as Theodora, as well as anthems, pastorals and cantatas, interwoven with the composer’s inimitable orchestral dances and sinfonias.

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London Unwrapped
Sounds of a Migrant City | Throughout 2021

London has been a melting pot since its earliest days, both a place of refuge, a glittering cultural nexus, the most cosmopolitan of all British cities. This year-long series aims to delve into four hundred years of London’s musical past, with its dazzling display and troubling undercurrents, its openness, opportunities and barriers. The series highlights a music story that always been driven forward, disrupted, shaped and inspired by outsiders and immigrant communities, and showcases the diversity of creativity in the city today. Featuring artists in residence Iestyn Davies and Cassie Kinoshi, Allan Clayton, Elena Urioste, Aurora Orchestra, The Sixteen, Phantasm and many more.