Dowland’s Dolour event image at Bedern Hall, Bartle Garth, St Andrewgate, York, YO1 7AL
York Early Music Festival 2026

Dowland’s Dolour

10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Bedern Hall, Bartle Garth, St Andrewgate, York, YO1 7AL (YO1 7AL)

About This Event

Katherine Butler, Associate Professor at Northumbria University unveils the story of ‘Semper Dowland, semper dolens’ (‘Always Dowland, always doleful’), capturing the public persona of the great Elizabethan composer and lutenist. Why did Dowland cultivate such a doleful persona? How did melancholy become a fashionable affliction in Elizabethan England? And why was music understood to be so effective for both its cultivation and its cure?