GEES Project Podcast
The GEES Project challenges the old assumption that girls were not allowed to perform on the early English stage. It explores girls’ participation in English dramatic culture from its earliest beginnings, and shows that they took active roles in religious drama, court masques, royal entries, civic pageants, and household entertainments: basically everywhere except the commercial London stage of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
Episodes
Over the same weekend in the spring of 2025 Alison Findlay, Professor at Lancaster University and Ruby Bones both directed separate productions of Lady Rachel Fane's May Masque of 1627. Professor Deanne Williams of York University and author of Shakespeare and the Performance of Girlhood and Girl Culture brought Alison and Ruby together to discuss their productions and the remarkable young author and playwright, Lady Rachel Fane.
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'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613 probably as part of the celebrations for a royal wedding. MIO's Artistic Director John Edwards talks to keyboardist Louise Hung about pitch and temperament - how early keyboards were not tuned the same way a m...
'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613 probably as part of the celebrations for a royal wedding. MIO's Artistic Director John Edwards talks to Prof. Deanne Williams about the plays by Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher and others, and masque perfor...
'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613. As the chief counsellor in the last years of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign and the first years of James I’s, Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury was at the centre of a web of political patronage, artistic patrona...
'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613. MIO's Artistic Director John Edwards talks to harpsichordist Louise Hung about the terminology of plucked string keyboard instruments in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period, how they make their sound, the ass...
Profs. Matt Kavaler and Deanne Williams talk with John Edwards about the paintings of the Master of the Female Half-lengths and their shared context with Anne Boleyn's songbook. We hear the Basse Danse La Magdalena by Pierre Blondeau played by John Edwards.
This episode was originally released on the Musicians In Ordinary's podcast feed.
The Rev. Dr Lisa Wang speaks to John Edwards about the adoration of the Virgin Mary and the Song of Solomon in the context of the Anne Boleyn Songbook. We hear Sicut Lilium by Antoine Brumel sung by The Musicians In Ordinary, Julia Morson, Whitney O'Hearn and Katherine Anderson, led by Hallie Fishel with John Edwards on lute.
This episode was originally released on the Musicians In Ordinary's podcast feed.
John Edwards talks to Prof. Deanne Williams about performance practice questions thrown up by the Anne Boleyn Songbook. We hear Alma Redemptoris Mater composed by Jacob Obrecht performed by Julia Morson, sop. Whitney O'Hearn, mezzo, Katherine Anderson alto, Eleanor Verrette, vielle, John Edwards, lute all led by Hallie Fishel, singing alto.
This episode was originally released on the Musicians In Ordinary's podcast feed.
Prof. Deanne Williams talks to John Edwards about Anne Boleyn's Songbook. We hear the anonymous Gabrielem Archangelum sung by Julia Morson, Whitney O'Hearn and Hallie Fishel.
This episode was originally released on the Musicians In Ordinary's podcast feed.
Director Heather Davies and theorbo player and music director John Edwards chat about the music in John Milton's masque Comus and especially about the dance music of masques in general, and the dances of William Lawes which we used in our production.
Visit https://musiciansinordinary.ca/episodes to click through the series and download mp3s to add to your music playlist.
This episode was originally released on the Musicians In Ordi...
Director Heather Davies and theorbo player and music director John Edwards chat about the music in John Milton's masque Comus and especially about the original songs by Henry Lawes.
Visit https://musiciansinordinary.ca/episodes to click through the series and download mp3s to add to your music playlist.
This episode was originally released on the Musicians In Ordinary's podcast feed.
Director Heather Davies discusses the special challenges of the masque form, Milton’s verse and the rehearsal process in the time of covid with John Edwards.
Visit https://musiciansinordinary.ca/episodes to click through the series and download mp3s to add to your music playlist.
Heather Davies was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and grew up in Toronto, Ontario. She’s trained as a dancer, singer, actor and musician and has worked profes...
Deanne Williams is professor in English at York University, a Fellow of the Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies and a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada. She was dramaturge for our production of Comus, has written extensively on girl performers in the Early Modern Period and dedicates a chapter to Milton’s character of The Lady in her book Shakespeare and the Per...
John Milton's Comus (Bridgewater manuscript version), with the original songs set by Henry Lawes and dance music by William Lawes, directed by Heather Davies, performed by Roger Honeywell - Attendant Spirit, Paul Hopkins - Comus, Bethany Jillard - The Lady, Tracy Ryan - Elder Brother, Beryl Bain - Second Brother, and Tahirih Vejdani - Sabrina, with The Musicians In Ordinary string band led by Christopher Verrette, 1st vln. with Pat...
John Milton's Comus (Bridgewater manuscript version), with the original songs set by Henry Lawes and dance music by William Lawes, directed by Heather Davies, performed by Roger Honeywell - Attendant Spirit, Paul Hopkins - Comus, Bethany Jillard - The Lady, Tracy Ryan - Elder Brother, Beryl Bain - Second Brother and Tahirih Vejdani - Sabrina, with The Musicians In Ordinary string band led by Christopher Verrette, 1st vln. with Patr...
George Torres, Prof. in Music at Lafayette College, Deanne Williams, Prof. in English at York University, and John Edwards discuss correspondences between lute instruction manuals and manuals on civility from 16th and 17th century in France & England, how lute lessons were also decorum lessons, & the lute lesson in Taming of the Shrew. We hear Delyght Pavan & Gallyard (Johnson) & I Cannot keepe my wyfe at howme (ano...
Prof. Deanne Williams, author of Shakespeare and the Performance of Girlhood, discusses the Stuart masque, its meaning and its participants. From Margaret Board's Lutebook we hear lute arrangements of The Antiq Masque, The Witches Daunce, The Lady Phyllyes Masque, The Lady Elyza, her Masque, The Prince his Almayne and The Prince his Corrento played by John Edwards. This episode was originally released on the Musicians In Ordinary's...
Prof. Tom Bishop (Univ. of Auckland) talks to John Edwards about plays, theatres, playgoers and pieces in Margaret Board's Lutebook she’d need to know to get all the references in the plays of Jacobean London. From Margaret’s book we hear Lachrymae, by John Dowland, referenced in Knight of the Burning Pestle, anonymous settings of ballads Poore Tome (King Lear) and Bony Sweete Robyn (Hamlet), and Richard Allison's setting of Goe fr...
Margaret Board was born in 1600, the daughter of a rich merchant, and had Europe's leading lutenist, John Dowland, as a teacher. Her book of lute pieces, notated in tablature in her hand and that of her teacher, is a collaboration between what her lute master thinks she needs to know and her taste as a young woman in Jacobean London. This episode was originally released on the Musicians In Ordinary's podcast feed.
This is the first of two episodes about the GEES Project's film of The Concealed Fancies (which you can find on YouTube or by clicking a link at geesproject.com), a play written by Jane Cavendish and Elizabeth Brackley, née Cavendish, during the English Civil Wars with an induction by Paul Hopkins to move the action from the Cavendish sisters’ house arrest during wartime to the confinement we experienced with the Covid pandemic.
Th...
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