Sunday concert with Renaissance Jukebox
John Dowland: Master of Melancholy, Darkness, and Delight
His legacy 1626 - 2026, Part One
Music of Dowland, Campion, Coprario, Gibbons, and Morley; contemporary songwriters John Morland, Kate Rusby, and Jesse Colin Young; and ballads and variations on tunes passed down through folk tradition.
2026 will mark 400 years since the death of John Dowland, a composer central to the study and performance of early music. In the first of two programs (stay tuned for Part Two in spring 2026) Renaissance Jukebox will present examples of the musical soundscape of Dowland’s time, including his compositions and those of his contemporaries, 16th-century popular tunes and ballads, and modern songs that are an extension of Dowland’s emotional world, evoking similar moods and imagery.
Renaissance Jukebox, the Center’s Musicians in Residence, perform renaissance and early baroque English lute songs, ballads, and traditional folk songs accompanied on lutes and viols. As regular performers in our concert series and holiday gatherings, their concerts often creatively feature pairings of 16th and 17th-century English music with modern folk and singer-songwriter selections that evoke the same message, mood, or imagery.