Since we cannot gather in concert halls this holiday season, the Boston Camerata will come to you with a newly-produced streaming version of An American Christmas. Filmed at Boston’s historic Old North Church, the performance features inspiring early American music, in a program reimagined specifically for this unique and challenging year. Artistic Director Anne Azéma comments: “This glorious music from a young and hopeful nation will give us all the kind of boost we wish for at the present moment.”
The Fine Print (please read!) An American Christmas will be available for streaming at any time from December 27 until January 15. There is no limit on the number of times you can watch the show during this period. Ticket buyers will receive an email with a link, prior to show time on December 27. 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 email.We encourage you to purchase tickets to give to friends this holiday season. Please contact the Camerata office for more information about ticket-gifting.
We are currently in intensive preparation for a new streaming production. An American Christmas features inspiring early American music, sung this year in the beautiful setting of historic Old North Church in Boston.
Available online December 20th through January 6th!
Dr. John McKean, our all important harpsichordist for our Dido production, provides some perspective on Dido’s famous lament “When I am laid in earth.”
This week, at the height of spooky season, we focus on the malefic part of Dido and Aeneas, with thoughts from Prof. Ellen T. Harris and two Sorcerers, as well as instrumental music for the Witches from our opera.
This week we will hear about the groundbreaking 1979 Camerata production and recording of Dido and Aeneas from Camerata Music Director Emeritus Joel Cohen and Board member David Griesinger.
Rising opera star Tahanee Aluwihare, who will be interpreting the role of Dido in Camerata’s new production of Purcell’s great masterpiece, shares with us her thoughts on this upcoming adventure.
“I am really looking forward to exploring this powerful feminine role with Tahanee, a major young talent on the North American music scene,” says Artistic Director Anne Azéma. “You can catch a glimpse of Tahanee’s enquiring spirit in this short clip.”
We dedicate this “Agnus Dei” from the beautiful Requiem by Provençal composer Jean Gilles (1668-1705) to the many who have suffered, or are suffering, in this difficult world:
to those who perished in the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001
to the victims of COVID-19 and all those who have been hurt by this pandemic
to victims of cruelty, racism and racist violence
to those who have recently lost loved ones; our recent losses at Camerata include Don Wilkinson and Tim Evans
May all of us heal, and may music be a part of what makes us once again whole.
The soloist in this consoling performance is Patrick Mason.
Anne Azéma, Artistic Director
Joel Cohen, Music Director Emeritus
…with this rollicking indictment of corruption in high places, circa 1200. Does any of this sound familiar? We are shocked, shocked.
‘Bulla fulminante’ by Philippe le Chancellier from Carmina Burana, arr. and dir. Joel Cohen The Boston Camerata, Joel Frederiksen, soloist
Translation:
Truth is suppressed, distraught, and sold …. If you seek preferments, in vain do you advance your record; do not bring up your good conduct, lest you upset a magistrate. In vain do you rely on your erudition, but rather you wail around for months and months, and still you can expect your preferments to be carried off by others, unless you compete with a price of equal weight.
As we wearily raise our heads, now and then, from the ancient medieval manuscripts that strain our eyes even as they fortify our souls, we notice something odd. Many of the songs and poems we diligently pore over, in Latin, Old French, and Provençal, are actually political polemics! They sound like they were written by today’s disgruntled pundits on Twitter, cable TV, or on the op-ed section of your favorite daily papers.
How could this possibly be? We are shocked, shocked.
And so, we initiate the Camerata Corruption Corps (CCC), a thoughtful enterprise to keep our minds alert and engaged during these humid summer days. We’ll share with you some of the more telling rants-in-music we have unearthed from many centuries back, and we’ll allow you to apply them as you will to the people and events of our own crazy day.
Here is our first offering, Curritur ad vocem, from the thirteenth century Carmina Burana. The subject, bien sûr, is venality and corruption:
Translation:
Everyone is running towards the voice of Money. Everyone goes after that which is forbidden. That’s how to live! If anyone in this business doesn’t know how the world works, let him choose, or disappear: Get what you need, by whatever means necessary. Law is no deterrent; the judiciary doesn’t matter. Virtue is crime.
Because of the virus, there are fewer opportunities to experience the arts, live, this summer. Yet life continues, and there is still music and movement in the air… Borrowed Light, heard and seen over much of Europe, Eurasia, and North America in over seventy performances, was, and is, one of Camerata’s most important achievements.
Thanks to the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, this memorable dance-and-music production featuring the Tero Saarinen Company of Helsinki, Finland, alongside The Boston Camerata, will be available for streaming via the Internet. It’s a magnificent work, based on authentic spiritual songs transcribed from Shaker archives, and sung live by Camerata, danced to extraordinary, boundary-stretching choreography conceived by modern dance genius Tero Saarinen, and performed by his ensemble.
The online video stream will premiere on Thursday, August 20 on YouTube and will remain available until Saturday, August 22. You can RSVP here to receive the link on August 20, plus some bonus content before the event.
Music Director Emeritus Joel Cohen, whose extensive work on Shaker music inspired Borrowed Light, says “Shaker music has been an important part of my life, and the Camerata’s life, for a number of years. What draws me to Borrowed Light isn’t that it’s illustrative of the Shaker songs we do. It’s a different community and a different story from the Shaker story that we sing, but the strong bond is the Shaker music, even though it’s very simple simple song, very musical, short phrases, catchy tunes. You think, ‘OK, this is a kind of folk music,’ and yet there’s a depth to it, because it goes right to the basic questions of existence – why are we here on Earth? And Tero does that with his dance. Sometimes the dance, in my view, complements what we’re singing; sometimes I see Tero taking an almost contrary stance to the music, but in every case, it doesn’t just give a simple illustration of something anecdotal. It’s profound, it’s real, and it’s deeply in touch with the things that the Shakers themselves were in touch with when they composed these melodies.”
Click here to hear from Tero Saarinen, the choreographer of Borrowed Light, sharing some recent thoughts on that work, and its persistent appeal.
Click here for original cast members of Borrowed Light, Deborah Rentz-Moore and Daniel Hershey talking about their experiences performing this piece over a decade of international touring.
Click here to watch the trailer for the 2012 production at Jacob’s Pillow that will be streamed.
If you find Borrowed Light important and meaningful, do let us know via mail, email, and possibly via a contribution, enabling us to continue our work during these challenging times.
Because of the virus, there are fewer opportunities to experience the arts, live, this summer. Yet life continues, and there is still music and movement in the air… 