The 36th Runnymede Pop Festival
Australia’s oldest and most famous early music group The Renaissance Players directed by its founder and international doyen of early music, Associate Professor Winsome Evans BEM OAM, presents the 36th Runnymede Pop Festival, a new 2014 program of medieval European music and poetry.
The line-up for this concert series includes singers Jessica O’Donoghue and Mitchell Riley as well as multi-instrumentalists Llew Kiek, Andrew Lambkin, Jane Duncan, Cyrus Meurant, Jessica Lim and Winsome Evans herself. Geoff Sirmai will present cheeky readings and poems and Erasmus the much-loved miming fool.
The brightly coloured costumes will add to the neo-Gothic splendour of the banner-decorated Great Hall; the exotic and authentic plucked, blown, bowed and percussion early instruments will include harp, psaltery, mandora, gittern, ud, diwan saz, sinfonye, rebecs, vielles, shawms, lur, gemshorns, douçaine, whistles, portative organ, duct flute, tapans, dairehs, darabukka, castanets, tambourines, zils, handbells and more!
The very first Runnymede Pop Festival was launched in 1973 in the Great Hall with eminent performers such as Prof. Frederick May, Graham Pushee, Lyndon Terracini, Michael Atherton, Barbara Stackpool, Wayne Richmond, Jonathan Rubin and Winsome Evans.
This concert series has established itself as the longest-running, regular festival of mediæval music, poetry and mime in Australia. These festivals continue to reinforce The Renaissance Players’ long association with Sydney University and its Great Hall where they presented their very first concert in September 1966. Now, with hundreds of concerts to their name, the Renaissance Players’ discography runs to 25 internationally acclaimed CD recordings; they anticipate the release of a new 2 CD collection of mediaeval music will be available at the performances.
Tickets $36 online at www.trybooking.com or at the door
Enquiries: (02) 4751 4910
