The Night Watch: exploring the intimate beauty of darkness

Wellington-based early music ensemble, The Night Watch, presents “In Darknesse”, their second 2025 concert, on 12 July.

The Night Watch early music ensemble, founded in 2019 and working with Australasia’s top specialists

In February this year I experienced my first concert by The Night Watch. In a beautifully-constructed programme of French Baroque music called “Ténèbres”, sopranos Carleen Ebbs and Rowena Simpson sang Couperin's Leçons de ténèbres, accompanied by continuo – Rachel Griffiths-Hughes on harpsichord, and Imogen Granwal playing viola da gamba. Granwal also played enchanting viol solos from Marin Marais' gorgeous Les voix humaines, woven in between the Leçons.

Beginning at 6pm in the magical interior of St Mary of the Angels Church, late afternoon sunlight fading to darkness during the programme, it was a lovely and peaceful introduction to the work of this early music ensemble. The audience was entranced by the radiant singing and accomplished instrumental playing.

Ténèbres laid out two themes - darkness and the human voice - related to a triptych of concerts being presented by The Night Watch in 2025.

The music of Marais was an early inspiration for Granwal, founder and now co-director of The Night Watch with musician Luka Venter. She saw the French film Tous les matins du monde ("All The Mornings of The World"), set during the reign of Louis XIV, showing Marais looking back on his young life. The sound track, featuring the viola da gamba, was performed by early music legend Jordi Savall. Granwal was instantly captivated.

Imogen Granwal, founder of The Night Watch

“…instantly captivated by the sound of the viola da gamba.”

Photo supplied

“I thought, oh my god, I have to play the thing that makes that sound!”, she remembers now. Then a student of modern cello at the Sydney Conservatorium, she had the opportunity to work with early musicians Daniel Yeadon and Neal Peres Da Costa, from the London-based ensemble Florilegium, who had moved to live in Sydney.  “I started having lessons,” she says “and enrolled in a masters in performance on viola da gamba.”

Granwal, a New Zealander, moved home eight years ago, and in 2019 The Night Watch presented its first concert, “Every Breath You Take”. A commitment to bringing top early musicians together was demonstrated by the leadership of that first ensemble by one of the pioneers of the British early music scene, Catherine Mackintosh, a founding member of the iconic Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Since then there have been more events, with a shifting ensemble bringing together groups of Australasia’s finest early musicians.

Venter, a composer, conductor and counter-tenor, joined Granwal as co-director of The Night Watch last year, after they returned to Aotearoa after studying and working in London. Their multi-faceted practice has long included an interest in early music. As a tenor, they sang Monteverdi, Gluck and Lully – “my tenor just went higher and higher and now it’s just countertenor” – and they also studied viola da gamba. As a conductor, they have a special interest in voice, especially opera, and works with text.

Venter’s return coincided with something of a hiatus in activity by The Night Watch, and Granwal’s sense that managing the ensemble required more time and energy than one person could realistically provide. Together, the two co-directors have articulated their priorities for the ensemble and planned both the 2025 three-concert re-launch and future projects.

Luka Venter, co-director of The Night Watch

“…a multi-faceted practice as composer, conductor and countertenor, with an interest in early music.”

Photo credit: Ben Reason

The vision is clear. “We’re an early music ensemble, not just playing the music but working with Australasia’s top specialists in this music,” says Venter. “The focus is both bringing that knowledge and expertise to the ensemble and also really energetic and wonderful music-making.”

The ensemble’s name refers, of course, to Rembrandt’s famous painting. “The visual contrast between light and shadow in that painting is exactly what I want to hear in music,” Granwal says. Rembrandt’s use of what the Italians called “chiaroscuro” – literally, “light-dark” – was unprecedented. His painting was also innovative in its vivid depiction of individual figures, and the dynamic sense of movement in the group, both recognisable musical characteristics of The Night Watch as an ensemble.

The upcoming concert, “In Darknesse”, again demonstrates the thoughtful thematic curation that attracted me to Ténèbres earlier in the year. Darkness is again the theme, with music created by British composers Henry Purcell, Tobias Hume and especially John Dowland, whose lute song “In darknesse let me dwell” gave the concert its name.

Venter comments that this July concert is also related to the time of year, a mid-winter journey through a night of melancholy. “We’re threading short works together, seamlessly flowing to make an unbroken arc.”

Dowland is of course a master of sorrow; his motto, “semper Dowland, semper dolens” (always Dowland, always doleful) was the punning title he gave to a consort piece. He was the preeminent lutenist of his generation and a composer of elegance and refinement.  

Amongst the lute songs, Granwal will play two diptychs of solo viola da gamba works by Scottish composer Hume, a viol player and an idiosyncratic composer who, like Dowland, worked at the Jacobean court. The two composers were rivals with very different backgrounds and approaches, who apparently despised each other. Hume was a soldier, Dowland regarded by many as a spy for the English government during his European travels. Their pairing in the concert will be another feature of an intriguing programme.

The Night Watch

“…thoughtful thematic curation around a theme of darkness.”

Photo supplied

Venter has brought his compositional skills to a “quiet moment” in the centre of In Darknesse. “It’s a surprise, for which we won’t give too many spoilers. I’m making a little compositional framework, with indications for the players to improvise on some of the Dowland material, around a certain text. It will be very beautiful, exploring the relationship between text and drama.”

Countertenor Austin Haynes makes his Night Watch debut in the concert, alongside Samantha Cohen, acclaimed Australian lute and theorbo player, performing in Aotearoa for the first time.

After the intimate melancholy of In Darknesse, the ensemble’s third concert of the year, scheduled in November as summer approaches, will take us to the warmth of Italy, “like a balmy night in a palazzo in Tuscany, perhaps,” suggests Venter.

Called “La Notte” after Vivaldi’s recorder concerto, featured on the programme, the co-directors describe the concert  of Italian Baroque music as “fiery and sensual, nocturnal but energetic”. The Night Watch is bringing together their group of core players, Miranda Hutton on violin, Sydney-based New Zealander George Wills on lute and theorbo, Granwal on viola da gamba, Karmala Bain on recorders, Griffiths-Hughes on continuo and Joan Perarnau Garriga on violone

The Night Watch plans another curated series for 2026, with the addition of chamber-sized concerts in smaller venues. Both co-directors would also like to explore working with artists from other disciplines, particularly theatre and dance.

Of course, funding and infrastructure are planning factors, as they are for all small arts organisations. The Night Watch is currently running a crowd-funding campaign on the Boosted platform – the link is below.

The Night Watch “In Darknesse” St Mary of the Angels Church, Wellington, July 12, 2025. More information and tickets here

BOOSTED campaign for The Night Watch – The Producers Circle (closing 9 July). More information and donation link here