Aureas Voces Blandford

Artistic Director, Nick Veltmeyer has arranged his seven favorite folk songs out of some 3,000 songs from the beloved Helen Creighton Collection. Veltmeyer’s arrangements balance contemporary and traditional interpretation of the ballads and songs of Nova Scotia, which represent a slice of oral tradition stretching back hundreds of years. These arrangements from Helen Creighton's collection are universally relatable songs of triumph over struggle and grief, recording experiences of voices that remain silent in history books. Pairing these with songs of Henry Purcell reveals surprising connections between early music and folk music (modal melodies, ornamentation, emotional content of poetry) and the pieces on the programme resonate and speak to each other across centuries and oceans.