![[IMAGE]](../images/camlogo4a.gif)
Home
| About The Camerata | Latest
News | Recordings
| Musician Biographies
Tours |
Greater Boston Concert Series |
Educational
Opportunities |
Contact Us
|
Online Newsletter July 2008
April 2008
February 2008 The Boston Camerata Announces New Leadership February 1, Boston, MA – Big changes are underway at the Boston Camerata, the local early music ensemble with an international reputation.Led for the last 39 years by Joel Cohen, who has brought the group from modest beginnings to a round-the-globe touring and recording career, the Boston Camerata will be appointing the French-born Anne Azéma as its new Artistic Director. Anne Azéma will begin her tenure in September; at the same time, Joel Cohen will assume his new role as Music Director Emeritus. Ms. Azéma, distinguished soprano, ensemble director, and scholar, has built a major, independent career as a leading specialist in medieval song, all the while remaining closely associated for many seasons with The Boston Camerata. With Camerata she has appeared as soloist, pedagogue, and frequent guest director. She has been present on virtually all of the group’s tours and recordings since the early 1980’s, and is a co-recipient of the Grand Prix du Disque for her role as Iseult in Camerata’s production of Tristan et Iseult. As an independent recitalist and researcher, Anne Azéma has produced five CD recordings of music from the French and Provençal middle ages, earning numerous awards and distinctions here and overseas in the process. Her recent teaching activities include extended residencies at the University of Oregon and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, as well as lectures and workshops in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. Ms. Azéma will be guiding the fortunes of Camerata’s long-established in-town series, now in its 54th year, as well as planning and leading tours and recording projects. As Music Director Emeritus, Joel Cohen will continue to perform and to offer an assisting role to the new Artistic Director. “Anne’s presence in Camerata is a wonderful and continuing gift of musicianship and artistry,” says Ken Turino, president of the Boston Camerata’s board. “We are happily anticipating a new era as she leads us all forward.” ************************
Ms. Azéma has also been widely praised in many other repertoires, from Renaissance lute songs to Baroque sacred music to twentieth-century music theatre. De Volkskrant, an Amsterdam publication, noted that "Azéma is, in her genre, as great as Callas or Fischer Dieskau." Since 1993, Anne Azéma has been not only the performer but also the creator of her programs. She researches and edits the repertoire, frequently transcribing the material herself from original sources. Her genuine and personal involvement with musical scholarship, combined with her performer's flair for immediacy of communication, give her recitals and recordings both a historical depth and an expressive "edge" that are unique in the field. Ms. Azéma’s most recent work has been the production of THE NIGHT’S TALE: A TOURNAMENT OF LOVE, the result of a residency at the Arsenal of Metz during the 2005-2007 seasons. This innovative program, conceived and directed by Ms. Azéma, is based on Le Tournoi (Tournament) de Chauvency written circa 1310 by the French poet Jacques Bretel, a musical narration of a courtly celebration in the Lorraine region of France. The CD was issued late in 2007 in France, to critical acclaim. Anne Azéma has co-directed programs for the Boston Camerata and has been a soloist with numerous ensembles, large and small, early and contemporary. Her recent festival invitations as a soloist, recitalist or director include Amsterdam, Graz, Dresden, Leipzig, Spoleto, Seville, Versailles, Jerusalem, Berlin, Boston, Bergen, Ambronay, Utrecht, Casablanca, Kyoto, Tanglewood and Tokyo. Among her teaching activities are master classes, seminars and residencies at conservatories and universities in France, Holland, Mexico and the U.S. She has contributed articles to scholarly and general audience publications. Ms Azéma's current discography numbers about thirty recordings on the Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Virgin, Nonesuch, Bridge, Calliope, Atma, K 617 and Warner labels.
PRESS “Anne Azéma understands perfectly how to bring her audience under the spell of Medieval love poetry.” --Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung “The singer Anne Azéma is the right person to clarify and actualize the hazy contours of the music of the Middle Ages, by the penetrating way in which she manages to link word and music.” --De Volkskrant, Amsterdam "An extremely well conceived program. With the marvelous
colors of her “Very few early musicians can play as palatably and still
remain true to "Beautiful and generous, with just the right touch of
sensuality and "Azéma is, in her genre, as great as Callas or Fischer Dieskau." --De Volkskrant (Amsterdam) “The splendidly pure voice. . . floats out as if descending directly from Heaven. You could weep at the beauty of it. . .” --The Village Voice “Anne Azéma is an early music soprano who can move from angelic purity to down and dirty.” --The Boston Globe DISCOGRAPHY Le Tournoi de Chauvency – Une joute d’Amour en Lorraine, K617- 2007Etoile du nord, Gauthier de Coincy, Calliope - 2003 (CD of the Year, Toronto, 10 de Répetoire)Die Stadt der Narren, Medieval Political Songs, WDR - 2001El Maestro, Spanish Love Songs, WDR - 2000Provence mystique, Erato - 1998 (10 de Répertoire, **** Le Monde de la Musique, YYYYY Diapason, Grand Prix des Discophiles, nominated, ffff Télérama, 5 Classica)Le Jeu d’amour, Erato - 1996 (10 de Répertoire, **** Le Monde de la Musique)The Unicorn, Erato - 1994 (10 de Répertoire, Choc du Monde de la Musique, 'Critics Choice'Gramophone, YYYYY Diapason)*************
Camerata's Tristan in a New Reissue From Warner Classics
Absent from the catalog for several seasons,
Tristan & Iseult, one of
Camerata's most famous and honored recordings, is now once again available
on Warner Classics, and we are delighted. On its initial release, this
recording won the Grand Prix du Disque, as well as dozens of
enthusiastic reviews around the globe, and was a bestseller of the Erato
Disques catalog.
Camerata's current live production of Tristan, including several
members of the original cast (Anne Azéma was and is an unforgettable Iseult)
played to a sold-out hall in Paris in January, 2008, and is a
prominent part of our 2007-2008 in-town season as well. Further plans are
underway for touring in 2009 -- stay tuned for more news!
January 2008 Camerata's Winter Concerts Warm Parisian Hearts
It was a snowy, blowy December in the American Northeast, and the bad weather even managed to blow away two of Camerata's scheduled Christmas concerts, an unwelcome first in our long history of holiday performances. But the shows that did take place, under Anne Azéma's direction, were a joy. Winter in Europe on the days following was milder.....but we still needed coats to pose for the accompanying photo, taken outside Paris' Theatre de la Ville, where Joel and the Camerata, along with our friends from the Sharq Ensemble, performed Mediterranean Christmas for a large and vocally enthusiastic crowd. The audience in Metz the next day was equally warm and welcoming. Camerata's winter mini-season in France continues in January with a nationally broadcast radio appearance and two performances of Tristan and Iseult; the Paris show sold out months ahead.... Oddly enough, though Tristan has toured widely in North America, Europe, and Asia, this will be the Paris premičre! We'll be back in Boston in February to share the magnificent Tristan legend, for the first time in many seasons, with our home audience. Meanwhile, best New Year's greetings from the other side of the puddle :-).
November 2007 Camerata's Tennessee Residency Successfully Completed
After three successful public performances, two university
lectures, and numerous classroom appearances, The Boston Camerata's fall
residency at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has drawn to a close.
During November, Canerata stalwarts Joel Cohen and Anne Azema made teaching
appearances in the French, History, Classics, and Music Departments of the
university, and, along with other musician colleagues, prepared a program
of medieval songs for Camerata's final concert performance at the school.
Yasmina Kamal has been Camerata's outstanding onsite program coordinator
during the length of the semester.
"It's been a blast," says Music Director Joel Cohen, "and
one of the best things from our point of view has been the chance to hear
and participate in local music-making. In mid-October, seven of us
participated in a Singing School alongside local shapenote singers. We sang
some old New England chestnuts by Billings, Ingalls, and others, and the
Tennessee people regaled us with songs from their seven-shape classic book,
the New Harp of Columbia."
Joel and the Camerata want to thank Doctor Robert Bast of
the Marco Institute for his tireless organizational help and support, and
especially for the transcendental barbecue sandwiches served at the
shapenote sing.
Our photo: A tune by Vermont's Jeremiah Ingalls (1805),
sung with a Tennessee twang.
The Boston Camerata's Team in Knoxville
During the weeks of our University of Tennessee residency, Camerata's
hardworking home staff -- Executive Director, Kathryn Welter and
Administrative Assistant/Concert Manager, Megan Getz -- was
temporarily, and magnificently, abetted by a sterling onsite workgroup in
Knoxville. Dr. Robert Bast, director of the Marco Institute, and his
wonderful assistant, Erin Read, were unfailingly resourceful and helpful
in the execution of a multi-layered and complex project. By the end of the
residency we considered them members of the Camerata family. And our own
Yasmina Kamal, who interned for Camerata during the 2005-2006 season,
agreed to come to Knoxville to serve as our onsite coordinator for the
duration. It was quite a special team!
In our packing-day snapshot you can see Robert Bast, Anne Azéma, and
Yasmina Kamal, with Bob's red van lurking in the background.
A Knoxville Memoir
Yasmina, who saw the residency unfold from day one to the very end,
has contributed a personal memoir of that exceptional time, and if you want
to know more you about how Camerata's residency was lived out, you can
read the article here.
Stay tuned for news of our recent performances of Borrowed Light at the Brooklyn Academy of Music!
August 2007 THE CAMERATA’S 2007-2008 SEASON: A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM JOEL COHEN The Camerata and I have tried to make the upcoming 2007-2008 events special, for all the usual reasons but for one unusual one as well: The forthcoming season will be my last as Music Director of the Boston Camerata. Starting in September, 2008, I will become Music Director Emeritus, and Camerata will embark on a new and exciting chapter of its long and distinguished history. And so, each in-town program of 2007-2008 has a symbolic value. "Renaissance Christmas" was the very first Camerata program to draw very large audiences and national attention when it made its début back in the 1970's. "Tristan and Iseult" put us on the map in Europe and Asia, and won the Grand Prix du Disque in the 1980's. And "Alla Turca", a new collaboration with a superb Turkish music ensemble, represents much of our current work on the frontier of friendly, cross-cultural dialogue with the Middle East and the Mediterranean world. More information on these not-to-be-missed events is available here. But symbols aside, our main goal, now as ever, is to fill up each performance with beautiful music. I'm delighted to present this new season to you, happy to reaffirm my continued commitment to the success of our ensemble, and full of joyful anticipation regarding Camerata's future musical adventures.
With many affectionate wishes to our supporters, Joel Cohen
Knoxville, Tennessee: A Medieval and Renaissance Semester with the Boston Camerata Autumn, 2007: The Boston Camerata is packing its bags and heading South. At the University of Tennessee in
Knoxville, the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
directed by Dr. Robert Bast, has announced a Medieval and Renaissance
Semester, including numerous special events for students, faculty, and the
general public.
Camerata director, Joel Cohen, and soprano soloist, Anne Azéma, will spend ten weeks on the U of T campus, team-teaching a course in medieval love song along with Dr. Rachel Carlson, resident musicologist. They will also be giving guest lectures and performance coaching sessions during their stay. From mid-September to the Thanksgiving break, many other Camerata musicians will be rotating in and out of Knoxville as we present four major concert events to University members and the public at large. The repertoire for these concerts is drawn from Camerata's most important and representative productions of recent seasons, including medieval Spanish, medieval French and Provençal, early American, and Spanish New World music. Collaborating ensembles will include old Camerata friends, the Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble, the choir of the Amis de la Sagesse church of Randolph, and Hazel Somerville's excellent childrens choir in Nashville. Onsite project coordinator will be former Camerata intern, Yasmina Kamal. The upcoming University of Tennessee residency marks Camerata's largest-scale, most ambitious educational project to date. It is an exciting challenge, an opportunity to work with some great people; and we can't wait to get started! We would love to see any Boston area friends who happen to be passing through. And yes, we will be back home in late November, ready to start the 2007-2008 concert season. More information on Camerata's residency, with precise concert dates, is available here. Warner Classics Reissues a Camerata "Classic" "A marvelous recording, without rival" -- Repertoire, Paris  We are delighted that "The Sacred Bridge", still
one of Camerata's most in-demand concert programs, is once again
available as a CD. This Warner Classics -- Apex release is a
note-for-note reissue of the original 1987 Erato recording -- in
fact, if you look just south of the "Apex" mark on the CD cover,
you can see the Erato epsilon, still surviving after all these
years..... This program in concert has evolved quite a bit since
those Erato days, and now includes the Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble
as partnering musicians with Camerata. Our most recent performance
of "The Sacred Bridge" took place last April in Paris, and now, a
few months later, it's good to see this landmark recording newly in
circulation: and available for purchase, if you wish, from our
own website.
Camerata Sells Out in Paris Five Months Ahead
"Borrowed Light": Comes to New York
Cited as "Best of 2006" by ciritics at both the New York Times and the Boston Globe, the joint production of "Borrowed Light" by the Tero Saarinen Dance Company of Helsinki, Finland and the Boston Camerata has been scheduled for a series of November performances at the reknowned Brooklyn Academy of Music. The modern dance production, choreographed by Saarinen to original Shaker music by the Boston Camerata, was the hit of the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in July 2006, following on numerous European performances in France, Germany, England, Finland, Sweden, and Italy. The November performances at BAM will mark the New York premiere of the work. "I love the idea of appearing at BAM," says Joel Cohen. "It's considered to be a mecca of avant garde creation and contemporary performance art. Having Camerata's music be a part of this modern-day conversation is an invigorating prospect. And of course working once again with Tero and his superb dancers is going to be an intense pleasure." Performances of "Borrowed Light," and related
events, will take place from November 7-10. More information is
available here.
*********************************************** Online Newsletter
April 2007
Camerata on the French National Radio
In conjunction with the upcoming April 22 concert in Paris, Camerata's music was recently featured on France Musique, the national public music station. You can hear the music and the interview with Joel Cohen here. Just click on the button upper right to begin the stream. P.S. It's in French.
Boston Camerata to make
"That's Entertainment" -- The March weekend weather was cold and miserable, the streets clogged with snow and ice, but the Camerata faithful who came to the American première performances of "The Night's Tale: A Tournament of Love" were treated to something hot. The Boston Globe reviewer used language we are more used to seeing in reviews of rock concerts: "Raucous," "gleeful," "impulsive" and "rowdy" were some of the terms he employed. "Superb...zest and elegance up front," he continued. "This group was so committed and immediate, you forgot that the music was 700 years old. That's entertainment." The audiences for the two performances were in agreement, as spontaneous standing ovations greeted the cast each night. Rendezvous for the musicians in a little over three months, for a July reprise of the show in France. The commercial recording of this production is slated for a September release.
A "Tournament of Love" There was not a seat to be had for months in advance. The much-anticipated, fully staged version of Anne Azéma's Tournoi de Chauvency, to be heard in concert version next March 16 and 17 in Boston , premièred to a capacity audience in Metz , France , on the last day of Feburary, to cheers and bravos from the packed hall. The musical production, based on a medieval narrative of a tournament in a French castle, was given a sumptuous staging by Italian-born stage director and choreographer Francesca Lattuada. After a week of recording for the French label K617, and a second performance at the Grand Théatre of the Duchy of Luxembourg, Anne and the cast members will travel to Boston for their appearances on Camerata's subscription series. Following the Tournoi's dress rehearsal, A Metz-based internet blogger was among the first to write down his impressions: It is a magnificent production, influenced by Japanese No theatre, a formative influence on the Italian artist. Costumes with just the right touch of modernity, breathtaking in their richness of creativity, with totally complementary voices -- especially touching are those of baritone Marc Mauillon and soprano Jennifer Ellis Kampani. And of course, there is Anne Azéma, who has been in a medival-themed residence for three years in Metz . She is at the origin of this show, to which she offers her magnificent voice and her winning personality. Not a single false note to the evening. We await the recording with impatience.
"MAGNETIC SENSUALITY": FURTHER PRESS EXCERPTS, “A project that may very well alter the way we look at the Middle Ages….Anne Azéma's interpretation is by turns evocative and distant… a new and liberated manner imposes itself….in the course of the performance, the [performer's] outer shell falls, to reveal another body, and an interior landscape, in an evocation of the art of our own time. A dream world is present at the rendez-vous.” “Anne Azéma's voice appears, sovereign in the ray of light, often expressing itself a capella, mastering the fiorituras and shaping a clear, rigorous, and subtly nuanced vocal line.”
Boston-area music lovers are invited to reserve their seats now for the concert version of this extraordinary new work, presented by the Boston Camerata! Our photographs: 1. The male singers of the Tournoi cast 2. Anne Azéma and Francesca Lattuada conferring onstage during a rehearsal
|
Please have a look at our record listings. The Boston Camerata has made lots of recordings (more, we guess, then any other early-music group in the New World). Many of these recorded programs have won international awards and distinctions. They all contain terrific music. In the recording links we invite you to explore, you can find track listings and/or extensive program notes for most of the titles, some song texts, and now even a few Besides all this interesting material you can browse for free, you can even buy the music from us (hint). Yes, we have to charge a little more than Amazon or CD Now, but we offer personalized service. And you have the satisfaction of knowing that your music-purchase dollars help support real, live musicians, not some faceless Wall Street suits.... |
We welcome
your inquiries. The Boston Camerata's
highly acclaimed CD's on Erato, Nonesuch, and Harmonia Mundi (here is
another chance to consult the current discography ), and other good stuff. All
profits from merchandise sales go towards supporting future Boston Camerata
projects. Click on this link for more info concerning Camerata director Joel Cohen; or send him mail by clicking here. To inquire about Camerata activities, purchase tickets, order merchandise, offer comments or suggestions regarding what's on our Web site, we welcome email at the following address: manager@bostoncamerata.org |
Boston Camerata OnLine Newsletter Archives:
Contact: The Boston Camerata,
45 Ash St. Auburndale, MA 02466, 617.262.2092.
©2008 by The Boston Camerata. Inc.
"A perfect
example of what a web site can be when set up by passionate musical performers"
-- Goldberg Magazine, Madrid
Anne
Azéma is one of the world's leading interpreters of early vocal music. She has
been acclaimed by critics on four continents for her original, passionate, and
vivid approach to songs and texts of the Middle Ages. 
The Boston Camerata is honored to have been invited for a
ten-week residency in Knoxville as part of the Marco Institute semester. 
Our "Tristan & Iseult", programmed in 2008 for
performances in France and Boston, drew worldwide attention and a
Grand Prix du Disque when it first appeared as an Erato CD. And,
apparently, it is still a "hot" draw to international audiences. We are
pleased to learn that, as of August 1, 2007, the January 12 concert at
the Théatre des Abbesses,
