The Herdwyck Consort, a new choir of just nine singers from around Cumbria entranced the audience at St Marks’s Church with some of the most exquisite music to have graced the building in its 100 years history. They came to sing some of the works of Juan Esquivel which have been given a new lease of life by our own Clive Walkley, whom readers of this web site will remember has published the definitive work on this composer. One of the works was sung for the first time in public since the seventeenth century and sounded as fresh as the day it must have been sung in the Spanish cathedral for which it was composed. The precision of the fine voices added to the music in the wonderful acoustics of Natland Church gave an enormous uplift to the spirit of the audience, many of whom will have heard a reasonably good choir at Westminster the previous day. Look out for the Herdwyck Consort next time they come to Natland, keep an eye on their website at http://www.herdwyckconsort.co.uk