About Faronel

Faronel 6Faronel perform music from the late Medieval and Renaissance periods on a variety of period instruments, including recorder, crumhorn, cornamuse, rackett, kortholt, curtal, shawm, rebec, bagpipes, medieval fiddle, harp, hurdy gurdy, symphony, organ, harpsichord and percussion. We also include vocal music in our programmes, both a capella and with instruments.

Our repertoire includes works ranging from the 11th century through to consort music of the early 1600s. We edit most of the music ourselves, often consulting the original sources, and we pay particular attention to performance practice in order to make sure that we are getting as close as is reasonably possible (given the many uncertainties!) to the original instrumentation and character of the music.

In particular, we specialise in concerts that introduce audiences to early music with the aid of explanations of the instruments, the repertoire and the contexts of the music. We often find that concert-goers have previously found the prospect of early music (particularly the medieval repertoire) somewhat daunting, and they appreciate our entertaining and informative explanations: by demystifying the music we enable them to enjoy it with understanding and insight. We also invite the audience to talk to us and look at the instruments at closer hand in the interval or afterwards if they wish.

We have given concerts at numerous music festivals, churches, halls, schools and private venues, and we have also recorded for a variety of clients ranging from BBC radio to pop groups. See the page about our music for a description of some of our programmes.

We are:

David Force. David read music as an organ scholar at the University of Durham; he subsequently gained an MA with distinction in musicology and  a PhD in English domestic music of the 17th century. David taught for 34 years as a Head of Academic Music and Director of Music in independent schools in Cumbria, East Sussex and Kent. He is now a Visiting Fellow in music at the Open University and has written many journal articles on topics relating to 17th century music. He is the author of the book The Consort Organ and its Role in Seventeenth-Century Ensemble Music (Ashgate Historical Keyboard Series, forthcoming 2025). David is the Executive Editor of the Journal of the British Institute of Organ Studies, and is also an English language editor for the Centro Studi Opera Omnia Boccherini, the Ut Orpheus Edizioni in Italy, and for the Brepols publishing house in Belgium. He works as a freelance organist and continuo keyboard player and directs the Mayfield Consort.

Ruth Force. Ruth studied as a choral scholar at the University of Durham and worked as a primary school teacher and headteacher in Lincolnshire and East Sussex for 36 years. A winner of the prestigious Bernarr Rainbow Award for her research in music education, she has been involved in developing the National Foundation for Youth Music’s work in primary schools. An experienced solo singer, she sings with the Mayfield Consort and has also co-written and directed several children’s music theatre projects. She now pursues part-time teaching alongside her work as a successful stained glass artist.

Michael Withers. Michael is a multi-instrumentalist and an experienced conductor, musical arranger and editor. Now retired from a career as a medical writer and web designer, he focuses on his many musical activities; among them he is a member of the Sussex Waits, the conductor of the Band of the Surrey Yeomanry, and the musical director of Heber Opera. His specialist area of research is English opera of the 17th and 18th centuries, in which field he has produced a number of performing editions of the works of Purcell’s contemporaries. His reduced orchestrations of a wide range of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century operas have been performed in many countries.