DAPPER’S DELIGHT

DAPPER’S DELIGHT

Canberra, Australia – April 2018

DAPPER’S DELIGHT

Recording session – June 2017

DAPPER’S DELIGHT

Historical Popular Music

DAPPER’S DELIGHT

Voices, Recorders and Concertinas

DAPPER’S DELIGHT

Historical Popular Music

About Us

 

 

We formed Dapper’s Delight in 2009 primarily to play music on the streets during our long annual cycle touring holidays. Following highly positive reactions from listeners, we decided to expand the concept into the concert hall. Our chosen repertoire focuses on the rich repertoire of 17th and 18th century English tune books and broadside ballads, which form a bridge between ‘art’ and ‘folk’ music – music that could have been performed on the street, in the tavern, at country fairs, carnivals etc. and that appears in both high and low cultural sources.

Despite our inauthentic and somewhat anachronistic instrumentation, our approach has found us friends and admirers from both the folk and early-music worlds and we have played concerts in the UK, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Norway, Portugal, Australia and Canada.

To date, we’ve recorded three CDs on the Karnatic Lab Records label which have been well received by the international music press.

 

 

 

We Are

Susanna Borsch – Recorders, Voice and English Concertina Adrian Brown – Anglo Concertinas and Voice Olfert Dapper – Explorer
Susanna Borsch – Recorders, Voice and English Concertina

Susanna Borsch – Recorders, Voice and English Concertina

Susanna Borsch is one of the few instrumentalists able to interpret both contemporary and early music with complete ease. She studied at the Amsterdam Conservatorium with Walter van Hauwe. Her solo CDs “off-limits” (2006) and “Susie, tell me a Story!”  (2014) feature many new works for recorder and live-electronics written especially for her. Her other ensembles include Mezzaluna (Renaissance polyphony in recorders); the band Hexnut; ELECTRA (all-female modern music ensemble);  BRISK and Flautando Köln (Recorder Quartets). Dapper’s Delight provides Susanna with the space to explore improvisation, and a freer approach to performing, in a repertoire full of beautiful melodies and invigorating dances.

Since April 2014 she teaches at the Trossingen University of Music in Germany.

Adrian Brown – Anglo Concertinas and Voice

Adrian Brown – Anglo Concertinas and Voice

A musical instrument maker by calling, Adrian Brown has conducted extensive research into the history of the recorder, measuring many original instruments, making reconstructions and has written several organological studies. He has played the anglo concertina since his teenage years and teaches the instrument both privately and at the annual German Concertina Meeting.

Olfert Dapper – Explorer

Olfert Dapper – Explorer

The name “Dapper’s Delight” is a reference to the Dutch humanist and armchair explorer Olfert Dapper (ca. 1635 – 1689) who despite never having travelled outside Holland published several geographical tomes, amongst which Description of Africa (1668) is still a key text for Africanists. A famous Amsterdam street market is named after him and it was here that the duo first performed in 2009.

Mike Harding Show, Radio 2 (UK)
“Well, that was a sweet bit of playing there, I hope that has put a little spring in your step, that was Dapper’s Delight…” © Mike Harding

Hear Us Live

2023

29 October 19h30
Eveng, Kirche Hemberg, 9633 Bächli-Hemberg, Switzerland Info here.

2022

After a long break due to “you know what” we have our first concerts for a long time in May:

29 April, 19h, House concert
Landstraat 6, 7126AT Bredevoort, NL [CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS]

1 May, 17h
KUBA Kulturbahnhof, Hitzacker, Germany, Info here.[CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS]

7 May, 19h30
Eveng, Kirche Hemberg, 9633 Bächli-Hemberg, Switzerland Info here.[CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS]

2020

8 February, 20h
Folkcafe Hoorn, “De Plataan”, Pastoor Nuijenstraat 1, 1689 GM Zwaag, The Netherlands

8-10 May
German Concertina Meeting, Seminarhof Drawehn, Germany. Info here.   [CANCELLED DUE TO THE VIRUS]

 

16-24 October
UK tour (in planning)

18 October
House concert, Durslay, Gloucestershire, UK. Please contact us for more information.

23 October
Ilkley Manor, Ilkley, Yorkshire, UK. [CANCELLED DUE TO THE VIRUS] Details here.  

2019

17-19 May
German Concertina Meeting, Seminarhof Drawehn, Germany. Info here.

22 Feburary
KUBA Kulturbahnhof, Hitzacker, Germany, info here.

2018

Australia Tour:

15 April
Illawarra Folk Club, Wollongong, NSW Info

16 April, 17h
Sydney Conservatory of Music Info

21 April
Humph Hall, Sydney NSW Info

27 April – 6 May
Residency at the Canberra International Music Festival, Canberra, ACT, Australia
28 April, 11am
Fitters’ Workshop, 11 Wentworth Ave, Canberra. Info

21 October, Afternoon
25th Jubleum of the NVMM (Dutch Instrument Makers Association: Kasteel Heeswijk Den Bosch

28 October, 15h
Afternoon Concert in de Muziekkammer Edam, The Netherlands. Info here.

3 November
Afternoon house concert Bloemendaal, The Netherlands. Please contact us for more information

16-18 November
Witney Supersqueeze Weekend. Principally a teaching weekend for Adrian,
but there will be a few Dapper’s Delight performances over the weekend. More info here.

 

 

Our Recordings

 

To date, we have recorded three CDs for the Karnatic Lab Record label: “Indoors“, which was released in 2011, was an album of mostly old English tunes with a few songs and ballads. Our second release “Disguisings“, from 2014, had the central theme of the Morris dance and Mummers and included a lot more songs while expanding our repertoire towards 19th and 20th century popular music. “Vernacular” (2017) continued our exploration of parallels between popular song and dance through the centuries.

 

Vernacular, released in 2017 (KLR 033)

Vernacular, released in 2017 (KLR 033)

Dapper’s Delight are back with their third album on Karnatic Lab Records. This new programme of popular songs and tunes from the ‘musical vernacular’ concerns the eternal themes of life, love and death. Studio fireworks borrowed from the pop world allow for more complex arrangements, and all the numbers are sung and played in Dapper’s Delight’s inimitable style of voices, recorders and concertinas. In addition to effortlessly virtuosic dance tunes and historical ballads, new versions of classic folk songs and incursions into the realm of the 19th century British Music Hall are a characterising element of the duo’s new repertoire.

Available via:

Disguisings, released in 2014 (KLR 030)

Disguisings, released in 2014 (KLR 030)

Since 2009, Dapper’s Delight has won friends and admirers with their programmes of historical popular music played on the unlikely but earthy combination of recorder and concertina. While examining, exploiting and celebrating the multifarious ties between folk and early music, they created a personal approach that began with their debut CD Indoors. In this new collection of exhilarating dances, sensitive airs and timeless songs, Dapper’s Delight delivers a virtuosic and soulful exploration of music that once entertained both princes and peasants alike.

 

Available via:

Download CD booklet
Indoors, released in 2011 (KLR 025)

Indoors, released in 2011 (KLR 025)

The recorder virtuoso Susanna Borsch, together with Adrian Brown on the anglo concertina take a new approach to music found along the historically ambiguous border between classic and folk music in 16th and 17th century England. As Dapper’s Delight, they present their enchanting arrangements of these timeless songs and invigorating melodies.

 

Available via:

 

Download CD booklet

Our Videos

Here is a playlist of our YouTube videos

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Contact

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If you’ve tried to get hold of us in the last month, we’ve probably not received your message, so please do get back to us.

Many thanks,

S and A

 

 

“…with feeling and from the heart.
…it has a fragility that I appreciate.
Two good musicians, beautiful repertoire…”

© E. Schilder