Theatre of the Ayre

The vocal-instrumental group Theatre of the Ayre offers dramatically oriented programs of 17th century music that evoke the mix of elements characteristic of the music in its own time. The group has also experimented with contemporary genre-crossing projects, including a lute-ukulele orchestra with a youth educational component. Theatre of the Ayre was founded in 2007 by lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, a veteran of the prominent early music groups Les Arts Florissants and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, who remains active as a researcher and educator. The group's first project, "The Masque of Moments," explored the under-performed genre of the English masque and was inspired by Kenny's research into the genre at the University of Southampton. The production toured the UK, Germany, and Belgium and garnered television broadcasts in all three countries. Theatre of the Ayre followed that up with a production of John Blow's Venus and Adonis, often considered the first English opera; this, too, was taken on tour and was also recorded for the Wigmore Hall Live label and released in 2011. Further projects included a production of Marc-Antoine Charpentier's opera Actéon, a collection of Ayres and Dialogues by John Dowland, and an examination of the English pastoral genre in the 17th century called "Setting the Baa High." Such programs retained the mix of comedy and tragedy that is often eliminated in modern productions but would have been very familiar to 17th century English audiences. In the mid-2010s, Theatre of the Ayre began a collaboration, "Lutes & Ukes," with the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. That project has expanded to encompass a youth arm, "Youth Lutes and Ukes," which has featured performances involving up to 360 children and has spawned several fresh tours; one was entitled "The Wolves of St. Elvis." The group has also begun to experiment with contemporary music, performing new settings of poetry by Shakespeare and Carol Duffy. The Masque of Moments project appeared in album form on the Linn label in 2017, and Theatre of the Ayree joined tenor Ed Lyon for 17th Century Playlist, a collection of opera arias and songs, on Delphian in 2019. ~ James Manheim