Early Music in Columbus
2008-2009 • 29th Season
All concerts are presented at 8 p.m., except for the Sunday, Jan. 11, 2009, Twelfth Night concert and the Sunday, March 22, 2009, Ensemble Lucidarium concert, both of which begin at 2:30 p.m. Each performance is preceded by a lecture 30 minutes prior to the concert.
La Gente D’Orfeo
Passion and Repose:
A 17th-Century Musical Extravaganza!
Friday, Oct. 10, 2008
Mees Hall • Capital University
The mythic figure of Orpheus – who moved men, beasts, woods and rocks with the music of his lyre – is considered the patron saint of all musicians. When Claudio Monteverdi wrote his opera “L’Orfeo” in 1607, he introduced a completely new style of music that influenced generations of composers after him. La Gente D’Orfeo (The People of Orpheus) was formed in 2001 to play the chamber music repertoire of 17th century Italy, the time when Monteverdi’s new style began to flourish in the works of other composers as well. La Gente’s newest program, Passion and Repose, includes works by Frescrobaldi, Biber, Sweelinck, Buchner, Rovetta, Weckmann, Marini, Rosenmüller and Cima.
"The music, the way they played it, gave the impression that it is music as it is supposed to be."
– Max Yount, Midwest Keyboard Society (past president)
The Rose Ensemble
Celebremos el Niño:
A Mexican Baroque Christmas
Friday, Nov. 21, 2008
Pontifical College Josephinum
Early Mexican music resounds in this joyful holiday program featuring more than two centuries of festive Christmas dances, ballads and villancicos from the great cathedrals of Puebla and Mexico City. Accompanied by viola da gamba, vihuela da mano and several percussion instruments (including African drums), solos and choruses burst forth in this program that’s anything but predictable. Based in Saint Paul, Minn., and founded in 1996 by Artistic Director Jordan Sramek, The Rose Ensemble creates imaginative performances of vocal music, connecting each individual to past worlds with stories of spirituality and humanity.
"Because of the beauty of the music, the variety of the voices, the liveliness of the personalities and the improvisatory support of gentle instruments, the performance was engaging from beginning to end."
– Cleveland Plain Dealer
The Early Interval
A Mediterranean Twelfth Night Celebration
Friday, Saturday & Sunday, Jan. 9, 10 & 11, 2009
Pontifical College Josephinum
The Early Interval's annual celebration of Twelfth Night will feature music from the middle ages, and Renaissance and Baroque that originated in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. This musical celebration of the close of the holiday season will once again be presented in the stunning acoustics of the St. Turibius Chapel of the Pontifical College Josephinum.
A Mediterranean Twelfth Night Celebration will feature early music from Christian and Moorish Spain, Cyprus, France, northern Africa and Italy. The group will perform vocally and on its usual wide range of instruments, including recorders, harps, violas da gamba, medieval lute, vielle, rebec, and pipe and tabor. Sean Ferguson, performing on theorbo and Baroque guitar, will join The Early Interval for this year's Twelfth Night concerts. Among the composers represented on the program will be Cristóbal de Morales, Lucas Ruiz de Ribayaz, Eustache Du Caurroy, Costanzo Festa, Claudio Monteverdi and Ermeni Murad Çelebi. As with past concerts, this season's program will include music from early improvisatory traditions, including an improvisation by Ron Cook on the harp of a north African taqsim based upon a traditional middle eastern maqam, or mode.
The members of The Early Interval are Ron Cook, director, Jim Bates, Janice Cook, William Dunlap, Aaron Minnick, Monica Rudy and Tamara Seckel.
“A holiday tradition ... A perfect end to the season.”
– The Columbus Dispatch
Venere Lute Quartet
Aery Entertainments
Friday, Feb. 20, 2009
Mees Hall • Capital University
One of few professional lute ensembles, the Venere Lute Quartet performs Renaissance and Baroque masterworks and is actively expanding the surviving lute ensemble repertoire with its own arrangements. In its Columbus debut, the quartet will perform works by Palestrina, Praetorius, Sweelinck and others. The Venere Lute Quartet is named after the Italian Renaissance luthier Vendelio Venere, who (like Stradivarius) was regarded among the finest luthiers of his age.
"...A world of lightness, space and clarity. Seated around a table, conversing in music with whispered tones, the Venere Lute Quartet helps sharpen our sense of hearing ... Un piccolo miracolo!"
– Amadeus Magazine (Milan)
Ensemble Lucidarium
La Istoria de Purim io ve racconto:
Music and poetry of the Jews in Renaissance Italy
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Mees Hall • Capital University
In the 15th and 16th centuries, Northern Italy was the confrontation point between a variety of Jewish communities: the Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazy from North of the Alps; the Sepharadi, who found exile in Italy there after a series of expulsions from Spain, Sicily, Portugal and the Kingdom of Naples; and the Italikim, who spoke Italian and traced their presence in Italy back to the Roman Empire. This program is dedicated to the musical and poetic legacy of the Jewish communities of Renaissance Italy, which present a vast, entertaining and cohesive repertoire, the exuberant result of the fertile crossover, fed by the confrontation between different cultures, made possible by one of the rare moments of peaceful cohabitation and mutual respect between Jews and their neighbors.
“... pure energy on period instruments ... the music did not seem at all ‘historical:’ relaxed and lustfully played, it seemed as fresh as on the first day.”
– Chaconne
The Early Interval
If all the World were Paper:
Entertainments at the English Court
Friday, April 24, 2009
First Congregational Church • 444 E. Broad St. • Columbus, OH 43215
In its spring program, The Early Interval will explore the varied music performed at the English court in the 16th and early 17th centuries – often referred to as the Golden Age of England in music. Included on the concert will be music from the court of Henry VIII, dumps, courtly and country dances, sacred and secular songs, and masque and theater music.
Download and complete the season ticket subscription form and attend all six of this year's concerts.