It was a bitterly cold February night, just about the worst of the winter, when Anne Azéma, Deb Rentz-Moore, Jane Sheldon, Shira Kammen, and Tom Zajac gave one of the hotter concerts of the Camerata season. Love and dalliance in medieval France were the subjects, and the audience, undeterred by frigid weather and by the ecclesiastical architecture of First Lutheran Church, rewarded the “Game of Love” cast with a standing ovation at the end. The church acoustics gave a nice sheen to the voices and instruments on the master recording made by WGBH, and on Valentine’s Day thousands heard the Camerata’s passionate music over the airwaves and via the internet. And a few days later, Anne and Shira inaugurated a new early music series in New York City’s currently “in” venue, Baryshnikov Hall, with some of the same French music heard in Boston.

Our December concerts began with three sold-out performances of “The Sacred Bridge,” in Cambridge and in Washington, D.C. We were joined once again by our friends of the Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble. We loved our audiences: quoth the Boston Globe, “The [Boston] audience applauded… as if it would have been happy to stay till dawn.” Joel, too, tells us he was thrilled to be leading this production once again, and also to get his chance, thanks to the miracle of digital photography in the Dumbarton Oaks museum, to produce a Christmas/Hanukah greeting card in the style of King Alfonse the Wise’s medieval illuminated manuscripts…
Then Anne Azéma took over the leadership role for the remainder of the month, and directed the first performances of “A Medieval Christmas” to be heard in our home area in a decade. An enthusiastic cast of Camerata veterans and newcomers helped Anne shape her own, personal vision of this now-classic Camerata program. People who have been following the evolution of this production over the years tell us they loved the current blend of old and new. WGBH radio was present, and broadcast large excerpts of “Medieval Christmas” coast-to-coast on Christmas day. And resident sound-and-image gurus David and Harriet Griesinger documented the Cambridge performance on video. We’ll have more news on that audiovisual front a little later…

For the fifth and final time in 2011, Camerata musicians packed their bags and passports, headed to Logan airport, and embarked on a European tour. Our five-performance itinerary on this swing had us return to Strasbourg, Rouen, and Caen, all places that had warmly welcomed us on previous tours. November brought us as well our Belgian début, in the magnificent medieval city of Bruges.

Notwithstanding our pleasure in the quaint streets and ancient church spires of Northern Europe, our particular delight this time was sharing our own, homegrown American hymns and spirituals with our enthusiastic French and Belgian audiences. And, in three of the five events, we had the joy collaborating once again with the superb dancers of the Tero Saarinen company in “Borrowed Light.”

We returned in time for Thanksgiving, and the December concerts closer to home – “A Medieval Christmas” and “The Sacred Bridge.” A rich harvest, indeed.

The tempest (Irene) was raging back home. And, to be honest, the weather was pretty unstable in Paris, too. Chilly, windy, rainy weekend weather was, however, unable to dampen the enthusiasm of our Paris friends – about 2,600 of them over two days, filling the seats of the outdoor auditorium for the Classique au Vert music festival.

We gave the audiences generous helpings of early Americana, from Boston, Northern New England, and the South: hymns, patriotic songs and dances. They responded with cheers and bravos, and the events, partly because of the sheer size of the crowd, had something of a rock-concert ambiance. Thanks to Jesse, Ben, Anne, Joel, Susan, Thea, Dan, Tim and Don for creating such good energy for the listeners in Camerata’s second homebase! We consider ourselves primed for the upcoming fall season in Strasbourg, Bruges, Caen, Rouen, and of course Boston. Come and share with us!

Thanks to our good friends (and newly-matriculated board members) Priscilla and Brett Donham, we spent an unforgettable August weekend in beautiful Alna, Maine — good food and fellowship, a swim in the river, and a concert of New England spirituals in the pristine, eighteenth century Head Tide church, before a wonderfully appreciative audience.

It was the kind of marriage between music and architecture that we often dream about — but this time, it was reality, a perfect match between the “frozen music” of the old church vaults and the warm, living sounds of early American song. We salute our generous hosts for a very special experience, which was eloquently summed up in an email from one audience member: “Splendid, special, wonderful, spectacular, magical, glorious.”