Christchurch Folk Music Club

Renaissance is a wonderful combination of period instruments – treble viol, flute/recorder, bass viol, cittern, bandora and lute. The combination of instruments with the wind instrument – the flute or recorder – combined with the treble and bass viols and plucked strings of cittern, bandora and lute lead to it being given the name – ‘broken consort’. Just google ‘broken consort’ to see more details and background. This is arguably the first chamber music ever written with each instrument being specified in the quite extensive repertoire of music available.
It is many years since NZ has had the
opportunity to hear a broken consort.

Roger Buckton: treble viol, flute, recorder
Nicolette Paul: tenor viol, recorder
Jane Brown: bass viol
Jonathan Le Cocq: lute
Scout White: cittern, violin
Liam Oliver: bandora, setar,oud

with special guest
Esmail Fathi: Persian tonbak and frame drum

Roger Buckton, an Adjunct Associate-Professor at the University of Canterbury, formed “Renaissance” in 2020. His background in the ‘broken consort’ repertoire was based on playing at the Early Music Centre, London and in Auckland with “The Kynges Companye” for which he was director. From these beginnings, he had in his possession two crucial instruments – the cittern and the bandora.

These instruments were not in good condition and it was Scout White, instrument maker and repairer who painstakingly brought them back into good working order. Scout is also a violinist and plucked string player and took over the role of playing cittern in the group.

Scout also plays a mean Irish fiddle and together with Jonathan Le Cocq on guitar, they perform throughout New Zealand as duo “Entrada”.

Dr Nicolette Paul is a mother and teacher of music and mathematics at Christchurch Adventist School. Both Jane and Nicolette play fine instrumants made by Wellington maker, Alan Clayton. Nicolette plays all the members of the recorder family, as well as flute and piano.

Jane Brown who previously played in Wellington with Robert Oliver, is a Banks Peninsula resident living in Duvauchelle. Apart from playing bass viol (also know as viola da gamba) she is a professional cellist playing with the Christhurch Symphony.

Liam Oliver specializes in plucked stringed instruments from around the world, particularly those from the Middle East, India and surrounding regions. Some of these instruments are: Persian and Indian setars, Afghan rebab, Arabic Turkish oud and Greek bouzouki. Working with members of the Iranian community, he co-founded Simurgh Music School in 2021 in order to share and teach these instruments to the Christchurch community.

For some years, Professor Jonathan Le Cocq was Pro-Vice Chancellor of the College of Arts at the University of Canterbury but is now based at the School of Music lecturing in music literature courses. His services as a lute and theorbo player are keenly sought by groups
throughout New Zealand and recently, he toured with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Apart from Shakespearian repertoire, the concert will feature contrasting Persian music with traditional Persian tonbak and frame drum played by Esmail Fathi.