Mara Winter, leader of ensemble Phaedrus  describes their programme as follows:
‘The King’s Flutes’: The Transverse Flute in Early-Tudor Court Music
Beginning with his coronation in 1509 and continuing throughout his reign in England until his death in 1547, Henry VIII strove to build up the cultural, and specifically musical, splendor of the English court. The Tudor King became a leader in the patronage of the arts, and his court would outshine musical establishments in French, Italian, and Flemish-speaking regions that had previously and contemporarily served as stylistic influencers and sources of foreign talent. The young Henry VIII was “determined to dazzle the world with his princely magnificence, and his appetite for “pastyme” and entertainment…”.
‘The King’s Flutes’, attempts to sketch an image of the activities of professional flute players active in England during the early Tudor period. King Henry VIII’s acquisition of no less than seventy-two transverse flutes by the time of his death (listed in an inventory from Westminster in 1542) shows that among the plethora of instruments collected by the King throughout his lifetime, the flute held a place of some significance at his court. The Tudor court not only possessed a large number of transverse flutes organized into consorts of similar instruments—they also employed members of the Italian Bassano family for over 125 years. With activities based both in London and in Venice, the Bassanos eventually became one of the most famous wind instrument-making families in Europe in the 16th century. An original traverso consort made by the Bassanos survives today, and is housed in the Accademia Filarmonica in Verona. A copy of the Verona consort is used to perform this concert program. Further evidence of professional flute players at the English court includes the payment records of specific kinds of instrumental players, including an ensemble referred to simply as “the King’s flutes”.
The music performed in ‘The King’s Flutes’ is representative of the celebratory, as well as the more intimate styles of music performed frequently at the English court, drawing from three manuscripts: GB-Lbl Add. MS 31922 (otherwise known as the “Henry VIII Book”), GB-Lcm MS 1070 (the Anne Boleyn songbook), and finally, GB-Lbl Royal Appendix 58, a collection of lute or keyboard intabulations with a written-out cantus voice dated from around 1540. I have attempted to take into account the research that exists which forms a social context for the musical sources, as well as what is known about the lives of wind instrument-players around the time of the production of the aforementioned manuscripts. Lastly, I have used my technical knowledge and personal understanding of playing modern copies of the Renaissance traverso to inform our interpretation of the pieces selected to be performed from these sources.
-Mara Winter