Image: Camp meeting of Methodists, historical woodcut circa 1870, anonymous
We were at the ready during these past difficult months. And the Boston Camerata continues, present for the musical season to come! We look forward, with a new series of unusual programs, to musical discovery, and to the return of live performance as soon as conditions permit.
We’ll Be There, our season opener, continues our decades-long exploration of early American spirituals, this time with particular attention to African-Americans’ contribution to this vital aspect of our national heritage. A Medieval Christmas, our holiday offering, offers the angelic sounds of female voices singing beautiful works from the Middle Ages. And Douce Dame Jolie tells the poignant medieval tale of an aging poet and his passionate young admirer. It’s going to be a memorable season — will you be there with us?
Subscriptions and ticketing will open soon – stay tuned!
Our 2020 streaming production of Dido and Aeneas will return from June 7-20, 2021! Produced under Anne Azéma’s direction in late 2020 under strict COVID mitigation protocols, our Dido stars Tahanee Aluwihare, Luke Scott, Camila Parias, and Jordan Weatherston Pitts, assisted by young professionals from Longy School of Music and backed by an all-star Baroque band. Its return is not to be missed!
Tickets for this event can be purchased with a $20 donation to the Camerata. As always, if you buy your ticket before the streaming period begins, you will receive the link via email on the first day of streaming. Please check your spam (and your Promotions folder, if you use that feature in Gmail) if you cannot find our email.
Our offering on this day of remembrance is not, strictly speaking, a Boston Camerata production, nor is it even an early music experience — but it should be heard. In the late 1990s, Music Director Emeritus Joel Cohen recorded Kurt Weill’s powerful 1936 score for an American antiwar play, Johnny Johnson, for Erato Records. From that extraordinary recording, we excerpt the “Song of the Guns” for male chorus. Its elegiac text is most appropriate for this holiday. And we send wishes for peace, everywhere on our troubled planet.
‘Soldiers, soldiers, Sleep softly now beneath the sky!’: you will hear Camerata soloists John Fleagle, Donald Wilkinson and Richard Lalli, with the Otaré Pit Band directed by Joel Cohen.
In this excerpt from Camerata’s Sacred Bridge program, Boujemaa Razgui sings an excerpt, in Arabic, from the Moroccan Nouba Rast Dal. Then Joel Cohen intones a Hebrew language Piyyut. The music, dear brothers and sisters, is the same.
In this moment of tragic conflict, may the things that unite us prevail over division and cruelty!
Can you believe tomorrow is May 1? We can’t. To celebrate the new month, here’s a May song from twelfth century Provence, but with a twist: In this performance, from Camerata’s trailblazing CD New Britain, it morphs into a Spanish-language Christmas carol from the American Southwest. Thus does musical energy, and the creative spirit, persist across the oceans, and the centuries. Forward into spring!
And stay tuned – next week we will have a special preview of Songs to the Lute, our upcoming online concert of French lute songs featuring lutenist Nigel North and our own Anne Azéma, which will be streaming from May 15 – 31.
Translations:
Calenda Maia, R. de Vacqueyras, Provence, ca. 1200 Neither Calends of May, nor beech leaves, nor bird songs, nor gladiolas – there is nothing that rejoices me more, noble and gay dame, than the messenger coming to me and speaking of your beautiful body that gives me the renewed pleasure of love, and takes me back to you, true lady; let the jealous one tumble!
Cuando por el oriente, New Mexico, 1953 When dawn came up from the east, our lady went out walking. Oh, what joy, my soul; blessed be thou, Queen of Heaven! * “Come,” said saint (Joseph), “We beg you, friend, to take us in. Sir, please give shelter to this young girl who is pregnant.” * Pregnant and beautiful maiden, who has ever seen such beauty. Oh, friends, these are flowers, and I can feel that there will be no more idiots in this world. * They took refuge in a fortunate shelter, where they were surrounded by a bull and a mule. What a joy to see these happy animals — there are beasts that can teach a thing or two to humans. * When the kings entered, without a by-your-leave, they made a square for a dance. A little black one, an Italian, a student, and a Portugee jumped around from place to place.
As snow falls over chilly Boston on this mid-April day, we turn to music to remind ourselves what spring is supposed to feel like…And so, in anticipation of the upcoming May 15-31 lute song recital by Anne Azéma and star lutenist Nigel North, here’s a lighthearted love song by Pierre Guédron, a superb melodist whom our Emeritus often refers to as the French Cole Porter of 1600.
Guédron, who deserves to be much better known, will be one of the featured authors during the Azéma-North online event, titled simply Songs to the Lute. If you haven’t already purchased your admission to this cornucopia of early French delights, we invite you to do so now!
The Fine Print (please read!) Songs to the Lutewill be available for streaming at any time between May 15-31, 2021. There is no limit on the number of times you can watch the program during this time. You will receive an email on May 15 containing the link to the video when it is ready to view. If you purchase your ticket after May 15, you will receive the email directly after your purchase.
As our communications sometimes go into spam and junk folders (or your Promotions folder, if you use that feature in Gmail), please make sure to check those places if you can’t find our emails.
The American Revolution began close to Camerata’s home, at the battles of Lexington and Concord. To celebrate those anniversaries, on Patriots’ Day, our friends at Classical Radio Boston will be re-broadcasting a live performance of our path-breaking Free America! program, recorded at Boston’s Faneuil Hall. Those early calls for freedom and justice sound just as timely right now as they did in 1776!
The Garden of Love, from the studio of Antonio Vivarini (ca. 1465-70), The National Gallery of Victoria, Australia
On this Good Friday, as Easter approaches, Passover draws to a close, and Ramadan nears, we offer a beautiful Arabo-Andalusian song about the mystical quest for the Other, excerpted from our currently-online video of The Sacred Bridge. May this be a time of renewal for all of us!
