Musicke in the Ayre
– soprano and lute

The Programme

‘Treason, treachery and the Tower’

Alysha Paterson – soprano
Din Ghani – lute

Blame not my lute

Jouissance vous donneray

Death, rock me asleep

It was a time when silly bees
O sweet woods

Now what is love?

Sir Walter Raleigh’s Galliard

In Angel’s weed

Bravely deck’d with flowers

When Laura smiles

While dancing rests

Shall I come, sweet love?

The Artists

Alysha Paterson was a choral scholar at Cambridge where she was also a regular soloist with the choir of Selwyn College. Passionate about early music, she has attended courses and masterclasses with Emma Kirkby and Catherine Bott, amongst others. As a postgraduate at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (TLCMD) she was a soloist with the TLCMD baroque chorus and players in the Greenwich International Early Music Festival, singing the role of Virtue from Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea in TLCMD’s opera scenes. She has given a recital of French Baroque music at the Foundling Museum, as well as six varied recitals with Musicke in the Ayre. Alysha won the TLCMD historical performance prize with a programme of Italian baroque song for voice and harp.

Din Ghani began playing the lute in 1975, and in the last two decades took up lute-making. He has made a number of lutes and other early plucked string instruments, including the ones used in this concert. Since 2007 he has participated regularly as an accompanist in lute song masterclasses given by Emma Kirkby and Evelyn Tubb. The coaching received from David Miller and Michael Fields at these events helped hone his accompaniment skills, together with occasional lessons from other top lutenists – Liz Kenny in particular.

Musicke in the Ayre was formed by Din in 2011 as a vehicle for exploring and performing the vast repertoire of C16/17 works for solo voice/s accompanied by lute or similar, with a growing band of singers who share his passion for lute song. Now established as a leading performer of this repertoire, they have given over 170 recitals across the country and abroad, involving over 20 singers both amateur and professional.