We're delighted to welcome back Dr Emily Baines who is performing a few pieces on medieval shawms for us. The shawm is a double reed instrument and comes in a number of different sizes, from sopranino to great bass, and it is an ancestor to the modern oboe and bassoon. The pieces featured in the video are "La Manfredina & La Rotta della Manfredina" by an anonymous 14th Century Italian composer, "Au Renouvel", a Trouvère Song from 13th Century France, "Splendens Ceptigera" from the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat and "Ce Jour De L’An" by Guillaume Dufay. Have a look at our collection of shawms and medieval music if you're feeling inspired!

Emily is a professional recorder player, lecturer and musical director working throughout Europe also specialising in a wide variety of historical woodwinds. 

She trained at the University of Hull, the Koninklijk Conservatorium (The Hague) and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she wrote her doctoral thesis on the role of mechanical musical instruments as sources for eighteenth-century performance practice. Emily is currently preparing a recording of her DMus research for First Hand Records and if you'd like to see some of the theatre work Emily has done you can watch a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream! Follow Emily on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to find out about  upcoming concerts and projects. Emily plays shawms and other woodwind instruments with Blondel who have recorded a CD and regularly perform all over the UK!