EarlyMusicNews.Org

“The seventh triennial Baroque Flute Artist Competition is for outstanding performers on baroque flute/traverso. Six semifinalists will be selected on the basis of their recorded preliminary auditions to compete at the convention. Three finalists showing the highest levels of technical proficiency, musical ability, and successful application of principles of historical performance practice will be chosen and presented in a convention recital. Cash prizes of $1,500, $750, and $400, co-sponsored by the David Hart Memorial Fund and the NFA Endowment Fund, will be awarded at the discretion of the judges. Prize of $100 will be awarded to each semifinalist not chosen as a finalist.”
   

“At the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, you will find many exemplary practitioners of diverse, authentic, living traditions—both old and new. The goal of the Festival is to strengthen and preserve these traditions by presenting them on the National Mall.
   

Week I-July 8-14, 2012 – Visions and Miracles
Week II-July 15-21, 2012 – On Wings of Song
Directors: Rotem Gilbert and Hanneke van Proosdij

“Save the dates in your calendar as we return with TWO weeks of SFEMS Recorder Workshop! Pick your week, or come to both. Fill your days with recorder ensembles, technique, Renaissance consort, recorder orchestra, master class, Feldenkrais movement, concerts, lectures, and more. Explore Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Contemporary, and World Music in an intimate setting with world-class faculty. Develop your recorder technique and ensemble skills in an inspiring and supportive atmosphere. 
  

Location: Washington National Cathedral & Cathedral College, Washington DC
(Plus an optional extra day of musical orientation Monday, July 9.)

Commemorating the 400th anniversary of Giovanni Gabrieli, organist at the great Basilica of St. Mark in Venice, the workshop will focus on his music – both sacred and secular – and that of his teachers and pupils, including Orlandus Lassus, Andrea Gabrieli, Hans Leo Haßler and Heinrich Schütz.

Location:  University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music

“The Jurow Competition semi-final round will feature 16 contestants performing solo works by Byrd and Bach, a movement from James Dorsa's Jupiter's Moons, and accompanying violinist Martie Perry on the Sonata in D minor by Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre. The selected semi-finalists are: Leon Schelhase, Nadja Lesaulnier, Lark Powers, Assaf Sommer, Mo-ah Kim, Chiaki Omura, Mark Edwards, Jia Lim, Tami Morse, Ricardo Magnus, Elisabetta Ferri, Shin Hwang, Jovana Bojovic, Jacob Street, Elena Zamolodchikova, & Faythe Vollrath.
   

Finals for The Eighth Aliénor International Harpsichord Composition Competition will take place on Friday, March 23, 7:30 p.m. in Werner Recital Hall at CCM.

The Aliénor's purpose: To encourage the composition of solo music for harpsichord and chamber music for harpsichord with modern or period instruments. The works of all finalists will be performed on the March 23 concert. Finalists in the solo category will be awarded $600 each plus additional prizes at the final concert, and the 3 finalists in the chamber music category will be awarded $800 each plus additional prizes at the final concert. The audience members are the judges for the top three prizes, which will be announced at a reception to follow.
  

Location: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Ohio USA

The 2012 Lute Society of America Summer Seminar and Lute Festival, 24 through 29 June, will again take place at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.  The faculty will include some old familiar faces, Robert Barto, Doug Freundlich, Ellen Hargis, Christopher Morrongiello (along with other members of The Bacheler Consort), Nigel North, Pat O’Brien, Paul O’Dette, and Crawford Young, and we are excited to announce that Eduardo Egüez and Sylvain Bergeron will be joining the roster this time.  The Pat O’Brien Scholar will be Grant Herreid, perhaps best known for his performances with Piffaro, and the Lute Doctor will be Andrew Rutherford.
     

“The winner of the 2nd International Singing Competition for Baroque Opera Pietro Antonio Cesti, held by the 2011 Innsbruck Festival of Early Music comes from Hungary: At the final concert, 25-year-old soprano Emöke Baráth impressed the jury as well as the audience with her outstanding performance. She received the 1st prize, which includes prize money of 4,000 euros, as well as the special prize directly voted by the audience, worth 1,000 euros. …
     

(News of the passing of Gustav Leonhardt, yesterday, on 17 Jan 2012. He will be missed by all.  -- All of our condolences to the family from all of us at EarlyMusicNews.org. -- Marc Paré, Editor)

Gustav Leonhardt (30 May 1928-17 Jan 2012)

“Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Gustav Leonhardt, who has died aged 83, was a pioneer and pillar of the early music movement. ”
  

(Repost -- Editor)

From the latest Ensemble Céladon’s newsletter, there is a reminder of their busy upcoming 2012 concert season (Jan-May 2012). Of note on their schedule is their much anticipated CD “Deo Gratias Anglia“ release on 20 March 2012.
  

Location: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, K Street NW, Washington DC

“The workshop is devoted to the fiery passions and broken hearts of the great Italian and English Madrigal composers.

It is presented in association with the Washington Early Music Festival, whose theme for 2012 is “Vices and Virtues – Passionate music of Early Europe”. Registration and further details will available at www.chorworks.com, and WEMF details from www.earlymusicdc.org”
   

From the latest newsletter of 11 Jan 2012, MuziekHandel Saul B. Groen sends us a list of their list of new publications for the period of October to December 2011.
  

Location: Menucha Retreat Center, Corbett, Oregon

“Ensemble classes for low intermediate to advanced recorder players will range from renaissance consort music and baroque to contemporary works and music for double reeds and percussion.   Viola da gambas are also welcome.  Five faculty members ensure small class sizes with personalized attention. Evening events will include a faculty concert, English Country Dance, and madrigal singing.
  

“Founded in 1982, the New London-based Connecticut Early Music Society presents an annual festival of between six and nine concerts each June. The term “early music” refers to both a repertory (European music written before about 1800, including medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and early Classical music) and an approach to performance (“historically-informed performance,” including the use of period instruments).
  

Directors: Frances Blaker and Kathleen Kraft

“Play and sing the broad sweep of Johann Sebastian Bach's compositions from cantata and chorus to concerto, from keyboard solo to chamber ensemble. Known for his far-reaching contrapuntal skills, outside-the-box harmonies, and exacting standards, Bach was also a master of heart-rending melody. His music reaches across time to touch people of all sorts. 
  

Location: St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 520 N. Boulevard, Richmond, Virginia

“The workshop features a variety of music associated with the great Basilica of St. Mark in Venice. With its Byzantine architecture and decoration, its many galleries and choir lofts, the Basilica has inspired generations of composers to write dramatic and moving music for its liturgies. 

We will sing and study works by Adrian Willaert, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, Antonio Lotti, and Claudio Monteverdi. The workshop concludes with an informal concert at 5:00pm (free admission).
  

“From Monteverdi's Orfeo to the Tribun of Mauricio Kagel, from the birth of opera to its maturity, Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing. in its 30 years of existence, has explored four centuries of music: Campra, Handel, Lully, Mozart, Monteverdi, Rameau, Vivaldi, Weill, opera seria, opera buffa, tragic opera, musical theater, melodramas, sacred music: it is thus, that, over the seasons, Atelier lyrique has established itself as a test bed of original events. Much of this creative work builds on a collaboration with orchestras and the use of original instruments: La Grande Ecurie du Roy and the Chamber. ...“

“Traditional Great Baroque Night in Masques, Banquet and Masquerade Ball Magical carnival night full of fantasy, music, delicious food and joy.
   

If you are in the Cambridge area, you may be interested in attending the  2012 Festival of the Voice concert:

• THE EARTH RESOUNDS - Choral Pilgrimage 2012 -- The Sixteen (18 May 2012)
• MEDIAEVAL MUSIC AND CONTEMPORARY WORKS -- Trio Mediaeval  (19 May 2012)
  
• STRIGGIO: Mass in Forty Parts; TALLIS: Spem in alium -- I Fagiolini (20 May 2012) 

A Midsummer Night's Dream
Director: Tish Berlin

“The Music Discovery Workshop is a summer day camp for young people ages 7-15. Campers explore early music and history each year through instrument class, ensembles, dance, and a theater project that focuses on a period or person. This summer the Music Discovery campers will present their own Shakespearean play, while studying the music and dance of England in Shakespeare's time. 
  

75th Anniversary Festival

Mission

The Carmel Bach Festival celebrates the works, inspiration and ongoing influece of Johann Sebastian Bach worldwide by immersing audiences in a festival experience integrating music, education and ideas.
  

Led by: Sally Dunkley and Philip Cave
Location: Chapel of St. Peter’s College, New Inn Hall Street, OXFORD OX1 2DL

“Robert White and Robert Parsons belonged to the generation of composers active in the 1560s, a fascinating period of transition in English music, and the young William Byrd was successor to Parsons at the Chapel Royal following the latter’s untimely death in 1572; despite the prevailing Protestant climate at that time, all three are known especially for their settings of Latin text. As well as singing the much-loved Ave Maria of Parsons, we plan to focus on White’s wonderfully expressive five-part Lamentations, and one of his Christe qui lux settings constructed around plainchant. Early on in his career, Byrd too wrote a set of Lamentations, well worth exploring, as well as a cleverly constructed and sonorous Christe qui lux. This spacious and richly scored music has a distinctive harmonic flavour and is a delight to sing.”
   

(Preview performance: 20 Jan 2012)

Ryan Brown, Conductor and Artistic Director

Le Roi et le fermier
Music by Monsigny, Libretto by Sedaine

“Le Roi et le fermier  was both a popular and controversial opera in its day, heralded for a storm scene bridging the mood of Act I to the nighttime divertissement in Act II, and for its frank treatment of class issues culminating in Act III.
   

Location: University of Dallas Music Department and the Renaissance Polyphony Project, Dallas Texas, US

“You are invited to join others interested in sacred Renaissance polyphony for a weekend singing the music of Cristóbal de Morales (ca. 1500-1553). The occasion is the 21st year for the Dallas-Fort Worth area Renaissance Polyphony Weekend at the University of Dallas. The singers’ retreat will again be led by Dr. William Mahrt of Stanford University. It will conclude with a Latin Mass. We will also sing some motets and Gregorian chant as part of the Mass.

The two and one-half day retreat will conclude with a celebrated Latin Mass, sung in The Cathedral at the Arts District, 2215 Ross Ave., in downtown Dallas. Morales’ Missa Aspice Domine (5 p.m) will serve as the ordinary of the Mass. The choir will also sing related motets and Gregorian chant during the service.
    

(late posting -- admin)

“One of the most beautiful and cosmopolitan cities in the world, with a flourishing early music scene, Sydney in mid-summer provides the ideal setting for the sixth Tallis Scholars Summer School in Australia.

Tutors for 2012 are: Peter Phillips, Janet Coxwell and Deborah Roberts, plus Warren Trevelyan-Jones.