Discover 200-year-old British-Indian crossover music through story, song, & puppetry!

By 1780, the East India Company had transformed Calcutta into a small English city. Musicians travelled from London to India, bringing the music of England with them. Others played their harpsichords with local Indian classical musicians, and wrote down the Indian tunes they jammed on with European notes.

Explore music from a young Calcutta, where performers wound melodies from many cultures into their own traditions.

Ensemble Tempus Fugit melds this unusual combination of period music and Indian song with puppetry and drama to tell a story of a traveller making his way to the musical heart of the City of Palaces.

Repertoire includes music by British composers Dowland, Purcell, and Locke; music for sitar and voice; and 1780s transcriptions of Hindustani and Bengali songs made by the wives of East India Company officers.

Ensemble Tempus Fugit is made up of some of London’s leading early music specialists.

For Calcutta, they are joined by:

- Rupert Enticknap (lead singer) is one of Britain’s leading young countertenors. He recently sang the role of Farinelli alongside Oscar-winning actor Mark Rylance in the Olivier Award nominated play Farinelli and the King in London’s West End. Last season he made his Glyndebourne debut as Rosencrantz in Brett Dean’s Hamlet under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski.

This year, Enticknap reprises the role of Rosencrantz in Hamlet for Glyndebourne on Tour, as well as for the Adelaide Festival. He will also sing Tolomeo in Handel Giulio Cesare for the Kilkenny Festival and at St John’s Smith Square for Early Opera Company with Christian Curnyn; Messiah on tour with the Gabrieli Consort, and a concert tour with the Israel Camerata.

- Debipriya Sircar (lead singer) was born and brought up in London. She began learning music at the age of 4 from her mother and her early gurus were the late Pandit Manesh Chandra Kansara (sitar) and the late Sri Golak Mohan Choudhury(vocal).

SInce 2003, Debipriya has been a disciple of Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, one of the finest exponents of North Indian Classical Vocal music and has received vocal training at workshops conducted in the UK. She has also received tuition in sitar from Ustad Shahid Parvez, and Sri Purbayan Chatterjee at workshops organised by Darbar (UK) and Pandit Sanjay Guha (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, UK).

- Jonathan Mayer (sitar) performs internationally, working with artists including Dave Stewart, The Bingham String Quartet, Kathryn Tickell, Kumar Bose, Kuljit Bhamra, Erich Gruenburg, Rohan De Sarem, The London Philharmonic Orchestra, Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra, Kenny Wheeler, The Orlando Consort, John Wilson, Bombay Dub Orchestra, Future Sounds of London, Sarah Brightman, I Musici Fiamminghi Orchestra,and Sir Paul McCartney.

- Director Francesca Bridge-Cicic is active as an actor, movement director and director worldwide, in film, theatre and the contemporary art world. She is a co-founder of Sandglass Productions with the director Joseph Blatchely, a film production company specialising in the documentation and study of performing the world's greatest playwrights. Alongside her acting and directing she is currently training at the National Centre for Circus Skills London, coaches Movement and Ballet for the Court Theatre Training Company, and is part of the Young Directorship Scheme at The Young Vic.

What the critics said:

"Let Calcutta go to all corners, and speak for diversity." - Chichester Observer

"A very impressive musical invocation of a fascinating period of British and Indian history, well acted, well staged, well sung and well played." - Andrew Benson-Wilson

For more details, visit: https://ensembletempusfugit.co.uk/shows/