The Cantabile Renaissance
Band invites you to spend an evening with
Thomas Morley, William Shakespeare, and others

Performances

Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 7pm

At Gallery 263, 263 Pearl
St., Cambridge, MA. Suggested donation, $10.

Parking

On-street parking is usually available, and on Sundays the
Residents Only parking is not in effect. If you do have trouble
finding a spot, use the lot at Trader Joe’s on
Magazine St. and Memorial Drive.

Public Transportation

Take the Red Line to Central Square and walk down Pearl
St. about half a mile to the Gallery.

Or take the #47 bus and tell the driver to let you off at Putnam St.

Sunday, March 18, 3pm

At the home of Vera Meyer, 521 Fellsway East, Malden, MA. The
concert will be followed by a pot luck supper.

Parking

There is ample on-street parking.

Public Transportation.

Vera’s house is just over a mile from the Malden Center Orange
Line station.

Program history

The inspiration for this program came when I googled the
unfamiliar name of the speaker in most of Deep
Lamenting: Amintas. I discovered that The
Aminta by Tasso was a play that would have been known to
Morley and his audience whose hero might well have had many of
the emotions expressed in the Canzonets to three
voyces.

I also read the wikipedia
entry on Thomas Morley, which states that for some time,
Morley lived in the same “parish” as Shakespeare, and they may
well have known each other.

I’ve long thought that musicians who sing pay insufficient
attention to the words (and that literary scholars who study
songs pay little or no attention to the music). This concert is
an attempt to rectify this situation, with respect to a very
exciting period in both literature and music.

Morley, Tasso, Sidney, and Shakespeare

The English home of the late sixteenth century had access
to unprecedented amounts of professionally written entertainment
for performance by amateurs. This concert will draw on four of
those resources:

• Morley’s Canzonets to 3
  Voyces, which we will be singing in its entirety, was published in 1593.
• Shakespeare’s plays were being
  published in quarto. We will use some of Romeo and
  Juliet which was first performed in 1595, and was
  published in quarto in 1597.
• Tasso’s
  Aminta was printed in London in 1591.
• Philip Sidney died in 1586. His works were circulated in
  manuscript and in unauthorized printings until his sister
  finally produced a more or
  less complete publication in 1598.

The music will be interspersed with readings from the poems and
plays, to give you a look at the intimate performances for family
and friends that might have taken place in the homes of the
Elizabethan families who went to the theater and heard polyphonic
music in church.

The Program

The first half of the program is a love story between an
coquettish woman and a young man infatuated with the idea of being
in love.

• Joy, joy doth so arise
• Reading, Sidney: ‘O fair, o sweet, when I do look
  on thee’
• Hold out my heart
• Reading, Sidney: ‘My true love hath my heart and I have
  his’
• Good morrow, faire Ladies of the May
• Whither away so fast
• Do you not know
• Reading from Romeo and Juliet: ‘Gallop apace, you
  fiery-footed steeds’
• Where art thou wanton?
• What ayles my darling?
• Reading from Romeo and Juliet: ‘If I
  profane…’
• Say deere will you not have me
• Blow, shepherds blow

After intermission, we explore a more tormented love affair, in
both Tasso’s Aminta (all the readings are from this) and the Morley.

• See, see mine own sweet jewel
• Reading: ‘I lived you see…’
• Cruel, you pull away too soon
• Reading: ‘From then onward desire…’
• Ladie those eyes
• Reading: ‘Others follow love’s delights’
• Deep Lamenting
• Farewell disdainfull
• Reading: ‘I see that stones and waves…’
• O flye not
• Reading: ‘I am content…’
• Thirsis
• Now must I dye
• Lady if I through griefe
• Reading: ‘I would rather lead off’
• Cease mine eyes
• Arise, get up my dear
• Reading: ‘I do not know if the deep pain’
• Love learns by laughing

The Performers

Laura Conrad, Director, Altus part

is the director of The
Cantabile Consort and Editor in Chief of Serpent
Publications, which publishes Renaissance music on the
internet, including the complete Canzonets
to three voyces. She has studied recorder with John Tyson,
serpent with Bernard Fourtet, and voice with Anne
Kazlauskas.

Anne Kazlauskas Cantus part

is a 1978 Ithaca College voice graduate, studied there
with Sharmal Schrock and later in Boston with Ellen Hargis and other early
music specialists. A church singer and keyboardist for over 30 years,
she now concentrates on early European, traditional Scottish, English
West Gallery and American shape note music. Regularly heard with
Convivium Musicum, West Gallery Quire and Norumbega Harmony, she has
also appeared with A Joyful Noyse, Hence Care!, on recitals, roots
music festivals, MIT concerts and several Organ Historical Society
national conventions. She has recorded for New World Records and
various independent labels.

John Maloney, Bassus part

Jonathan Gilbert, Reader, March 18

Kristin Gilbert, Reader, March 18

Jean Monroe, Reader, March 25

Ishmael Stefanov, Reader, March 25,

studied violin, winds and voice, and played with school and
community orchestras, bands and choirs.
Following graduation from engineering school, he discovered the world of Morris and contra
dancing. He plays with the Black Jokers Morris Team and the West Gallery
Quire, and sings in
Norumbega Harmony.

Publicity

If you want to help publicize this concert, email a pointer to
this page to
anyone you think might be interested, or post it to any mailing
list where it’s on topic.

We have flyers in several forms, to take when you go somewhere
where people might be interested, or to post on public bulletin
boards, particularly in the neighborhood of one of our
locations:

• Basic
  flyer for Cambridge performance: it’s prettier in color, but will work in black and
  white, too.
• Basic
  flyer for Malden performance: it’s prettier in color, but will work in black and
  white, too.
• Flyer
  with program on the back, more for handing out than for
  posting.
• Flyer
  with both performances
  , for printing on a duplexing printer.
• 4-up
  flyer. If you want to carry a stack of the Cambridge flyer in your pocket
  and hand them to anyone you meet, print these and cut them into
  quarter-pages.
• 4-up
  flyer. If you want to carry a stack of the Malden flyer in your pocket
  and hand them to anyone you meet, print these and cut them into
  quarter-pages.
• 4-up Malden
  flyer. If you want to carry a stack of the Malden flyer in your pocket
  and hand them to anyone you meet, print these and cut them into
  quarter-pages.
• 4-up duplexing
  flyer. If you have a duplexing printer, you can print this
  and have quarter-page flyers in your pocket with both
  performances on them.