The Harmonious Society of Tickle-Fiddle Gentlemen
Taking its name from the description by the poet Ned Ward of the musicians who played at one of the world’s first series of public concerts, in London, The Harmonious Society of Tickle-Fiddle Gentlemen was founded in 2006 to explore the neglected repertoire of public concert life in England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Described on BBC Radio 3 as ‘purveyors of exhilarating and uplifting music’, the ensemble also maintains a broader interest in early eighteenth-century music for public concerts from across Europe. Its first CD, Concertos and Overtures for London, devoted to works by Johann Christoph Pepusch, won accolades around the world and became a bestseller in Germany, reaching No. 1 in the German classical charts in 2012. Its follow-up CD, of Pepusch’s 1715 masque Venus and Adonis, also received critical acclaim around the globe and was nominated in the ‘Opera 1’ category for the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik in 2016. The group continues to perform in concerts and festivals across Europe.