Charismatic violinist and director Bjarte Eike and principal members of Barokksolistene, renowned for their Alehouse Sessions, make their LHF debut in this unique collaboration with the Royal Academy of Music. First an album from 2017 as well as a series of performances, The Alehouse Sessions has now been turned into a film for television, to be broadcast on BBC Four on 23 April.

Venue-provided beer in hand, they shared a toast with the audience before diving into a flow so evocative that “atmospheric” barely does justice to describing its escapist power. At the time, Puritans had closed theaters under cloak of moral guardianship, in the process displacing highly trained musicians into the alternate reality of the tavern, where they filled the air with intoxicating sounds as patrons intoxicated themselves. Directed by award-winning director Dominic Best, the film captures the sound world of rebellious London as musicians and performers sought refuge in teh backrooms of taverns and alehouses.In what is by no means your typical classical music concert, guests will be able to move in and out of the Queen Elizabeth Hall foyer to sip on a cold drink and experience the different layers to the evening. By evening's end, I found myself pondering the prohibitions that led to this fountainhead of creativity, and couldn't help but reflect on the current landscape of political lockdowns, scandals, and hypocrisies. I feel lucky, blessed and quite humbled that I get to present this wonderful music, together with my wonderful friends, and the crowd and crew behind the cameras really engage in the whole thing. Indeed, Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike's fascinating project doesn't so much transport us back to the past as reposition the past in the here and now, when its lessons are more poignant than ever.

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The latter tune is carried magnificently by singer Thomas Guthrie, whose approach to lyric is informed by his own love of theater, and makes its presence felt in a smattering of standalone ditties, elegies, and sea shanties.

Here is music that asserts itself as a commodity only of the heart, fermented with just the right amount of personal expression it until it goes down smoothly like a pint ripe for the palate. This is a window into Cromwell’s tumultuous lock-down England where, under a cloak of moral guardianship, the Puritans have closed all playhouses and forced trained musicians to seek refuge in the tavern. Google Analytics sets this cookie to calculate visitor, session and campaign data and track site usage for the site's analytics report. Eike was a beacon of focus throughout, linking his ensemble into a chain of artful exchanges, comic interludes, and audience rapport. BBC Four is broadcasting our Alehouse Sessions which filmmaker Dominic Best filmed in Battersea Arts Centre one snowy night in December.Hans Knut Sveen plays anything from harpsichord to harmonium; Frederik Bock plays any kind of continuo – guitar, lute, theorbo and any style up to blue grass; Johannes Lundberg’s roots are in jazz; Milos Valent is one of the greatest Slovak folk string players; Per Buhre is a countertenor and cider-maker extraordinaire; Helge Andreas Norbakken plays all sorts of percussion and drives steam locomotives; Tom Guthrie is a stage director and vocal entrepreneur; Steven Player is our unstoppable pony-tailed dancing Romeo; and I have found a new thrill in jumping out of aeroplanes and teaching yoga. This was immediately followed by a version of Purcell's “Lead Me” that was even more resolutely alive than the album version.

I realise that this takes a particular kind of musician prepared to enjoy mistakes and turn them into opportunities for humour, to spark new ideas and to improvise.The rest – harmony, rhythm combination of instruments – is completely for us to reimagine, and it’s so liberating. Like the “Spanish Set” with which the group encored, during which Eike walked through the crowd with his violin, it was a reminder that listening is an active process.