En Garde!
Apollo’s Fire and its founder-director Jeannette Sorrell to join forces with members of the English Baroque Soloists for a thrilling musical fencing match during weekend residency at St-Martin-in-the-Fields (Friday 24 & Saturday April 2026)
American period-instrument ensemble’s latest UK tour also includes a recreation of music made in the four quarters of Jerusalem’s Old City, the imagined sounds of a 17th-century pub and a visit to a Middle Eastern café of c.1700
Tour ends with a repeat of Fencing Match programme at Snape Maltings Concert Hall (Sunday 26 April), including double concertos by Vivaldi, Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach
‘Apollo’s Fire, the lauded group from Cleveland, brings joyous spontaneity to its performances,’
The New Yorker
Apollo’s Fire have inspired capacity audiences at home in the United States and overseas with their joyous artistry and passionate commitment to building bridges between different cultures and communities. The GRAMMY®-winning early music ensemble, led by their Artistic Director and founder Jeannette Sorrell, are set to return to the UK next spring for their second residency at St-Martin-in-the Fields (Friday 24 & Saturday 25 April 2026) and to give a concert at Snape Maltings (Sunday 26 April).
The festivities begin at lunchtime on Friday 24 April with a chamber programme entitled Pubs and Palaces of 1610 – a richly flavoured banquet of pieces that range from the British Isles to the Mediterranean basin and feature voice, lute, oud, harps, violin and viola da gamba. Friday evening’s concert, Fencing Match – Duelling Double Concertos, brings Apollo’s Fire together with members of the English Baroque Soloists. Apollo’s Fire crown their St Martin’s residency with O Jerusalem! Crossroads of Three Faiths. The programme presents a vision of an ancient city in which the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam coexisted for many centuries, often in harmony, and cultivated a rich repertoire of sacred and secular songs. “We will take a musical tour through Jerusalem and its ancient Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters,” notes Sorrell. “This concert brings together an amazing group of international artists. We have an Israeli recorder player, Daphna Mor, and Ronnie Malley, a Palestinian-American oud player, both of whom are incredible virtuosi.”