During recent years, three CPO productions in the Boston Early Music Festival series have received Grammy nominations in the category of the Best Opera Production and two have received Gramophone Award nominations in the Baroque Vocal category.

Following Charpentier’s Actéon (CPO7776132) late in 2010, the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble and outstanding young soloists now lend new life to John Blow’s Venus and Adonis in a top-quality performance under the leadership of the lutenists Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs.

The striking parallels between it and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas suggest that the two works were composed at about the same time and are interrelated in some way. While Dido and Aeneas stands firmly in the epic tradition, Venus and Adonis is a model example of the pastoral genre.