Cappella Fede London debut as part of Heythrop anniversary celebrations

Cappella Fede perform under Peter Leech at St Francis Xavier's Church, Liverpool, 2008

Cappella Fede choir and orchestra will perform their London debut concert on 19 June 2014 at the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, Mayfair, London W1 as part of the 400th Anniversary celebrations for the Foundation of Heythrop College – For the Greater Glory of God and the More Universal Good. The programme will feature music associated with English Jesuit colleges in Liège and St Omers, as well as music by composers in the wider European Jesuit college network, some of whom were themselves Jesuits. It will also feature several first modern performances.

Cappella Fede is a specialist 17th-century ensemble, formed by Peter Leech in 2008, which first performed at St Francis Xavier’s Church in Liverpool on the occasion of the landmark Catholic cultural event, Held in Trust: 2008 Years of Sacred Culture. The exhibition and concert formed part of the City of Liverpool’s celebration as Capital of Culture. The ensemble was named in honour of Innocenzo Fede, composer and maestro di cappella at the Catholic chapel of King James II from 1686 to 1688.

Since then, Cappella Fede has established a reputation for innovative programming, with several first modern performances from British 17th century composers and other rare works. In 2013, the musicians performed as part of a one-day symposium dedicated to Jesuit culture, The World is our House, in Hereford. That concert featured reconstructed choruses and recitatives from a range of 17th-century Jesuit plays, including Jakob Balde’s Jephtias (1654) and Johann Kaspar Weissenbach’s Eidgnossiches Contrafeth (1673). It also included the first modern performance of the complete reconstructed recitatives from the rare Jesuit drama Sanctus Tewdricus (c1679), excerpts from which were first performed at Liverpool in 2008. There were also motets by Felice Anerio (maestro di cappella at the Collegio dei Inglesi in the 1580s), Agostino Agazzari, a teacher at the Roman College at the turn of the 17th-century and Tomas Luis de Victoria.

The concert by the Cappella Fede choir and orchestra, under the direction of Dr Peter Leech, will take place at 8pm on Thursday 19 June 2014 at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, London W1K 4AH. Tickets cost £15, available from www.ies.sas.ac.uk/heythrop400