Mr Isaac was the most important dancing-master at the late-Stuart court in London. He wrote dances for performance at court, several celebrating Queen Anne's birthdays, and others named after significant court figures or historic political events. He was fashionable, published, and outstandingly individual, so why is he a little-known feature of the baroque dance scene today? Well, one of the main reasons is that it seems no one has ever transcribed, arranged, or recorded any of the music! How can anyone learn, or teach, or perform the dances without any music to work with? Through The Isaac Project, Apollo's Revels is working to do just that - to make a recording of each dance that will allow dancers around the world to explore, perform and enjoy this characterful collection. We're delighted to have enlisted the help and advice of Jennifer Thorp, who has recently published 'The Book' about Mr Isaac and his fascinating collection of dances, and baroque dance expert Mary Collins who has been telling us for years that these things are worth exploring! So we have been exploring, and have been delighted to discover that they really are worth it! The choreography is fun, and witty, and characterful, showing a quirky individual style that must surely have been much enjoyed at the court. And musically we've found that the given melodies are unfailingly good (in fact we should perhaps issue a warning for lots of toe-tapping earworms...) and have lent themselves to transcription and arrangement into what promises to be a very good listen, with or without the dancing!

Of highest importance in this project is that whatever we record, it's main aim is to allow more people to access the repertoire, so we're taking care to rehearse the music and choreography together in order to fully understand the character, appropriate speeds, and individual inflections of each dance. It's a lot of choreography. So we've decided to make the recording in two stages so we can focus on a manageable portion of the collection at a time. The first stage is set to take place in November of 2024. We've expanded the band to include Fernando Santiago Serrano dos Santos (violin), Rebecca Miles (recorders and violin), and Matthew  Nisbet (theorbo and baroque guitar). Our engineer and producer is the renowned Adrian Hunter, with whom both Lynda and Alison have recorded many projects with before.

Phase one of the recording took place in November 2024, and was made possible by the generous support of
Angel Early Music - thank you!