Leo Chadburn, Phaedra Ensemble, English Dancing Master
Forthcoming, 30th October 2026
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Album information, credits, press quotes and lyrics.
About English Dancing Master
Release date: 30th October 2026 (Library of Nothing Records)
A collaboration between Phaedra Ensemble and composer Leo Chadburn, springing from their shared exploratory approach to music, voice and meaning.
Like a ruptured radio documentary, a voice conjures a string quartet to explore two notions: kinetic expression (the dancing we do with our bodies) and free association (the dancing we do with our minds). Twenty fragmentary scenarios move through place and time with chaotic energy, alternately serene, sinister and absurd.
English Dancing Master touches on themes including human and animal locomotion, the popularisation of the drum machine, the movement of particles and glaciers, mediaeval "dancing plagues", ballroom dancing and drag performance in Blackpool, legendary London clubs now demolished and illegal raves in the 1990s. Dancing as political act; dancing as cathartic release.
The title is stolen from the famous collection of country dance melodies, originally published in 1651, but English Dancing Master is otherwise a wholly original collision of texts, styles and ideas.
Album Credits
Performed by Phaedra Ensemble:
- Phillip Granell violin
- Zahra Benyounes violin
- Miguel Sobrinho viola
- Sergio Serra cello
with Leo Chadburn voices
Production credits:
- The words and music are written by Leo Chadburn
- Commissioned by Phaedra Ensemble
- Produced and mixed by Jamie Hamilton with Leo Chadburn
- Mastered by Katie Tavini
The release of English Dancing Master was supported by The Hinrichsen Foundation and Vaughan Williams Foundation.