Author: Laura Conrad

News of the week of February 21, 2012

Meeting report

We played:

Schedule

Here’s the schedule for the next couple of months:

  • Tuesday, February 28, No meeting
  • Tuesday, March 6, regular meeting. (Anne has agreed to open
    up.)
  • Tuesday March 13 regular meeting
  • Sunday, March 18, Concert: Shakespeare’s
    Neighbors     3 pm at 521 Fellsway East, Malden
  • Tuesday March 20 regular meeting
  • Sunday, March 25 Concert: Shakespeare’s
    Neighbors     7pm at 263 Pearl St., Cambridge
  • Tuesdays March 27, April 3, 10 and 17, Regular meetings
  • Tuesdays March 24 and May 1, meetings restricted to and compulsory
    for performers at the Walk
    for Hunger
  • Sunday, May 6 10am to 3pm, Walk for Hunger

Walk for Hunger

Remember that you should let me know as soon as possible
whether you want to play at the Walk for Hunger. A lot of what
we’re thinking about playing is five part music, and we shouldn’t
work on that unless we’re going to have at least five
performers.

Another Concert Announcement

Or more specifically, an announcement of another performance of
the same concert. Vera Meyer is graciously allowing us to perform
Shakespeare’s Neighbors
in her living room, at 3pm on Sunday, March 18. It’s free and
open to the public, and there will be a pot luck supper following
the concert. Please come, and bring all your friends.

Concert Announcement: March 25

The Cantabile Renaissance Band will be performing
“Shakespeare’s neighbors: an evening with Thomas Morley, William
Shakespeare, and others” on Sunday, March 25 at 7pm at the 263
Gallery, 263 Pearl St., Cambridge, MA.

This performance will include the complete Morley Canzonets
to three voyces, interspersed with readings from
Romeo and Juliet, Phillip Sidney, and The
Aminta by Tasso.

For more details, see the concert
webpage.

There’s a flyer you can print and paper your neighborhood with and
give to all your friends.

We are trying to set up other performances of this program,
which I will announce on this list as we finalize the
arrangements. If you have an idea for somewhere West or South of
the central metropolitan Boston area where we could do it, let me know.

News of the week of February 14, 2012

Meeting Report

We played:

Schedule

We will be meeting as usual on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at my place with
the following exceptions:

  • Tuesday February 28 will not be a dropin rehearsal, as the
    Morley group will pre-empt that time.
  • On March 6, I will be working at the polls for the presidential primary, so someone
    will have to open up if we want to meet that night.
  • The meetings in March and April will concentrate on the Walk for Hunger program.
    The meetings of April 24 and May 1 will be limited to (and
    compulsory for) the
    performers at the Walk for Hunger.
  • On Sunday, May 6, we’ll be playing between 10am and 3pm.
    You shouldn’t sign up unless you can be there at least between
    noon and 3pm.

Next week, February 21, will probably be our last meeting for a
while where we will not be concentrating on the Walk for Hunger
program, and where we will have a new piece to sightread. So if
you have ideas about what you’d like to do, either for the new
piece or for old pieces that aren’t suitable for the Walk program,
let me know.

Walk for Hunger

We will be performing again this year, as we have every year
since 1999, at the Walk for Hunger, in a beautiful spot on the
Charles River, at the Cambridge-Watertown line. Unless you’re a
major rock star, it’s probably your only opportunity to perform
for tens of thousands of people.

Let me know if you want to play. If you do, let me know what
you would like to play.

I’m leaning towards an all-English program, with some
Morley, Weelkes, Holborne, Dowland and Byrd. Let me know your
likes and dislikes in that range. Also, if that would leave out
your favorite upbeat walking music, let me know about that.

News of the week of February 7, 2012

Meeting Report

We played:

Schedule

We will be meeting as usual on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at my place.

Tuesday February 28 will not be a dropin rehearsal, as the
Morley group will pre-empt that time.

On March 6, I will be working at the polls for the presidential primary, so someone
will have to open up if we want to meet that night.

Walk for Hunger

We have again been invited to play at the Walk for Hunger, in
our usual time and place. This year it’s on May 6, and we’ll
probably be playing informally starting at 10 am and doing our usual two
sets at noon and 2 pm.

If you’d like to play, please let me know as soon as possible. In
addition to being available on May 6, you should also plan to come
for both of the Tuesdays immediately before that (April 24 and May
1), and as many other Tuesdays in March and April as you need to
learn the music.

I would like to have a playlist by the beginning of March, but
I can’t do that until I have the list of performers, so please let
me know as soon as you can.

Also let me know if there are pieces you’d particularly like to
play, or pieces that would cause you to not want to play if they
appeared on the playlist. We would like to have a mix of the
complicated polyphony we spend most of our time on and simpler
polyphony that comes across better in the noisy outdoor setting.
We need to spend at least half the time on instruments, since it’s
quite strenuous singing in that setting.

News of the week of January 31, 2012

Meeting report

We played:

Schedule

We will be meeting as usual on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at my place.

Tuesday February 28 will not be a dropin rehearsal, as the
Morley group will pre-empt that time. If there’s interest, we
could have a dropin meeting on Thursday, March 1 instead.

News of the week of January 24, 2012

Meeting Report

We played:

Schedule

We will be meeting as usual on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at my place.

Other events

There are several concerts of Renaissance music this
weekend:

  • Convivium Musicum is
    playing works of Orlandus Lassus on Saturday, January 28 at 7 PM
    in the
    Cambridge Friends Meeting house and on Sunday, January 29 at at
    4 PM at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Brookline.
  • Music for Viols and Friends presents “The Tudor Consort,”
    music from the courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, performed
    by mezzosoprano Pamela Dellal, El Dorado Ensemble (Carol Lewis,
    Mai-Lan Broekman, Paul Johnson, Janet Haas and Alice Mroszczyk,
    viols; Olav Chris Henriksen, lute & renaissance guitar) and
    special guest Wendy Gillespie, viol. The concert features songs,
    dances, fantasies & solos by Henry VIII himself, van Wilder,
    Ferrabosco I, Tallis, Byrd, Johnson, Morley & others. It will be
    Friday, January 27, 2012 at 8 pm in Lindsay Chapel, First Church in
    Cambridge, Congregational, Cambridge MA, and also Sunday, January 29,
    2012 at 3 pm at the Somerville Museum.
  • Exultemus is playing
    double choir music for voices and brass on Saturday, January 28
    at 8pm in the University Lutheran Church, Harvard Square, and on
    Sunday, January 29, at 3pm at the First Lutheran Church of Boston.

News of the week of January 17, 2012

Meeting report

We played:

Schedule

We will be meeting as usual on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at my place.

Other event

Trium, literally “of three,” is a trio of superb sopranos
who have dedicated themselves to the exploration and performance
of music of three equal voices. On January 22, 2012, they will
present Portraits in Miniature.  In the tradition of the
Renaissance miniature portrait, a tiny detailed devotion to a
beloved subject, Trium will explore, luxuriate and
celebrate bite-size portions of a variety of periods and styles,
from the Notre Dame school in medieval Paris to the sixteenth
century Flemish motet, to the English Madrigal style, with a
soupcon of turn of the century and contemporary.  The concert will
take place at the historic Loring-Greenough House, 12 South
Street, Jamaica Plain MA, as part of the Sunday Afternoon at
the Greenough House parlor concert series.
Trium was founded in 1997 to perform a benefit concert at
Emmanuel Church in Boston, but Shannon Larkin, Margaret Johnson,
and Susan Trout are well known individually for their work with
Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, and Emmanuel Music.
Each of the voices has a distinctly unique quality, and when they
come together they make a gloriously blended sound that is even
greater than the sum of its parts. Margaret’s pure sweet tone and
stratospheric range surround each piece with a halo of brilliance.
Shannon’s clarion soprano weaves in with a shimmer and dips down
into mezzo warmth. Susan’s brilliantly radiant and richly warm
tone adds depth and beauty before carrying its strength to the top
of the staff. Whether they are singing a finely tuned dissonant
chord in a Renaissance motet or an exquisitely blended unison in a
contemporary art song, Trium makes music “of three” sound like so
much more.