THE KING'S FLUTES
LUXURY, EXCESS AND VIRTUE IN THE AGE OF ENGLAND'S FIRST PROFESSIONAL FLUTE PLAYERS
TO BE RELEASED IN 2026
The King's Flutes is inspired by the professional flute-players who worked at the Tudor court for over a century, and our own fantasy about making music together using Henry VIII's collection of more than 72 finely-made transverse flutes documented in his final court inventory.
Phaedrus invokes the creativity of those early professional flute players, who collaborated with instrumentalists and singers on a regular basis. Alongside the traverso, the Renaissance lute is also showcased: In The King's Flutes, Emma-Lisa Roux gives voice to the stunning French and English-language songs surviving in Tudor music manuscripts, effortlessly accompanying herself on the lute. A second lute, performed in masterful dialogue with the first, is played by Bor Zuljan.
Through the music and poetry performed in The King's Flutes, Phaedrus speaks beyond a simple fascination with the history of our own instruments. We gaze from the future into the glimmering past to understand our current culture's obsession with wealth and ownership, and on the construction of Virtue through the accumulation of material symbols.
