Runnymede XXX - June MMVI
We're glad to be able to report a return to live shows for The Renaissance Players, following one of the longest breaks from live performances in the group's history.
After a three-year break for other concerts and projects, The 30th Runnymede Pop Festival will finally take place on June 6 and 7 in the Renaissance Players' traditional venue of The Great Hall at The University Of Sydney. We might as well call this lineup Winsome and the Renaissance Men or something like that; Winsome has assembled the first all-male (besides Winsome) lineup of the group in recent (and not-too recent) memory, including a return visit from arch-plucker of many 1980s and 1990s lineups of the group, Andrew Tredinnick.
Rehearsals have commenced and you will read all further details here as soon as they are available. Mark those dates in your diaries now!
A Wizard of Earthsea released
Craftsman Audio Books in England released a new Talking Book audio edition of Ursula le Guin's seminal fantasy novel A Wizard Of Earthsea (1967) on March 6. The box set of six CDs, read by Karen Archer, is now available online from various UK merchants.
Apparently admirers of the Players' music for the ABC Radio production of Watership Down many years ago, the people at Craftsman contacted Winsome in April 2005 regarding the use of Renaissance Players music in the project, and we are pleased to announce that this release will make use of the Renaissance Players recording Estampie Chemin, from our 1995 release Garland Dances (Walsingham WAL 8006-2). This talking book of A Wizard of Earthsea is also expected to be released in the USA in due course. There is no mention yet of a local release for Australia.
A Wizard of Earthsea has previously been recorded several times, including as a radio play for BBC Radio 4 (1996, narrated by Judi Dench). A television edition was made in 2004 for the Sci-Fi Channel in the US, but with substantial alterations which apparently incensed Ms Le Guin. The Earthsea novels (originally a trilogy, but now a quadrilogy augmented by a collection of short stories) have never been out of print, and they certainly put Harry Potter in his place! By chance, this article on Le Guin's work, past and present, appeared in a recent edition of The Sydney Morning Herald (reprinted from The Guardian).
Winsome's Bach project is finished!
On December 22, Winsome completed her longterm project of a completely new transcription and recording of J.S.Bach's six Partitas and Sonatas for Solo Violin. After many and various setbacks, she has transcribed the complete work for harpsichord, recorded a performance of the whole transcription and prepared the scores for publication; a Herculean task. The search has commenced for a publisher for the scores and a CD label to release the 160-minute work. This also hopefully will mean a return to reasonably frequent appearances by the Renaissance Players in 2006!
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Current lineup
Winsome Evans
Andrew Tredinnick
Andrew Lambkin
Chris May
Nick Tester
Ian Shanahan
Nick Wales
John Robinson
Russell Harcourt
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