'The Alehouse Sessions', curated and devised by Bjarte Eike, is an evolving insight into the music of the English 17th Century tavern. It shines light onto this tumultuous period through Purcell overtures, English sea shanties and Scandinavian folk songs, thrown in for good measure, brilliantly evoking the atmosphere of a raucous port pub in the 1690s. These sessions have already been hailed as "irresistible" [The Times], "superb" [The Scotsman] and "fabulously unrestrained" by The Guardian, "creating the effect of a late night jamming session", said BBC Music Magazine. "The signature of this project is the interaction on stage between the players and the audience...drawing its inspiration from the Shakespearian theatre where there was a direct communication between stage and hall", says Bjarte Eike. 'The 'Alehouse Sessions' will be on tour throughout 2017.

“I must admit that the prospect of a musical recreation of a long boozy session in a seventeenth-century tavern had me on high cringe-alert, but I'm so very glad I gave this a spin - the result somehow manages to feel authentic and contemporary at the same time (and had one of my most curmudgeonly colleagues dancing in his seat when he thought I wasn't looking).” Presto Classical