EarlyMusicNews.Org

“Music plays an important part in Handel House and we have two harpsichords and a spinet which are regularly used for rehearsals and weekly concerts. Concerts are held in Handel's music room which he used as a recital room and where he would rehearse his latest operas or oratorios with musicians and singers.“
  

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cathedral of St John the Divine & Harold Rosenbaum: Pilgrimage

“In a special free event on Wednesday, December 21st at 6:00 PM, early music singers led by conductor Harold Rosenbaum will walk through Central Park from the front steps of The Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, singing medieval melodies once sung along the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela.
  

Hell hath no fury like I FURIOSI scorned.  Not your average Christmas concert.

Guest: James Johnstone, harpsichord

I FURIOSI is one of the world’s most innovative Baroque ensembles, comprised of four of Canada’s leading early music specialists: soprano Gabrielle McLaughlin, violinists Aisslinn Nosky and Julia Wedman and cellist/gambist Felix Deak. These four bold musicians celebrate I FURIOSI’s Thirteenth Season by invoking the "bizarre and unnatural" aesthetic both esteemed and reviled in the Baroque era. Captivating performance style and inspired thematic programming has garnered I FURIOSI a reputation as a rebellious and ground breaking force in the Canadian and international early music scene.
  

Oxford University Press is holding a “Holiday Sale” on various books. You may want to take a look and see if there are any music titles that may be of interest to you. (ed.)

“Don’t get left behind! Visit Oxford’s 2011 Holiday Sale and save up to 65% on our bestselling titles. This is the perfect time to get that title you’ve had your eye on all year.

Now, you can flip through the catalog online.We’ve made it even easier for you enjoy the savings!”
   

Required application materials include a project description (no longer than 1,000 words), a budget, and a CV. Letters of recommendation are not required and are not accepted. All applicants must renew RSA membership for 2012 (renew starting 1 November for 2012 membership). See below for additional membership criteria and criteria for specific grants.

The Renaissance Society of America will award eighteen grants in the year 2012.

The grants are:

• RSA Research Grants (9 grants)
• Rensselaer W. Lee Memorial Grant in Art History (1 grant)
• Paul Oskar Kristeller Memorial Grant (1 grant)
• Bodleian Library Research Grant (1 grant)
• Patricia H. Labalme Grant (1 grant)
• Samuel H. Kress Foundation Grant in Renaissance Art History (5 Grants)
    
  

New at LIM (Lim Editrice S.r.l.):

• La canzone napoletana Le musiche e i loro contesti  (The Neapolitan song The music and their contexts) by Enrico Careri and Anita Fish
  
• Enrico Radesca Musica sacra Volume V  (Henry Radesca Sacred Music Volume V) by Anna Maria Ioannoni Flower, Ruscillo Augustine, Roman Vectors
    
  

Ten concerts to sing  Christmas in the Baroque mode through “les Bouches-du-Rhone”. From Spain to Italy, via Germany, all the musicians of Baroque Europe are determined to illustrate the Nativity. This program proposes some of the most beautiful pages of Claudio Monteverdi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Alessandro Scarlatti, Juan Bautista Cabanilles, Marc'Antonio Ziani, where you can hear the ”cornemuses” of the shepherds who crowd around the manger,  be moved with the Virgin in front of the sleeping child, feel the emotion and joy that cover the earth at the announcement of the coming of the Savior.
  

After a short disruption from the Early Music DC webserver, the following is the latest of concert listings in the Washington DC area.
  

“We are celebrating our first year of high-resolution downloads from Sweden with a special pre-Christmas promotion. Every day, from December 1 until Christmas Eve, you will find two different 24-bit albums from BIS and PentaTone at a 50% discount that day. If you miss one, don't worry, you will still have the opportunity to download it at a reduced price for two more days, the first day at 25% and the second at 10% discount.”
  

“Welcome. The subject of this website is a manuscript of extraordinary importance to the history of science, the Archimedes Palimpsest. This thirteenth century prayer book contains erased texts that were written several centuries earlier still. These erased texts include two treatises by Archimedes that can be found nowhere else, The Method and Stomachion.
  

Luca Mereu: baroque mandoline
Elisabetta Fardelli:  harpsichord
Date: 11 Dec 2011
Location:
Teatro Keiros
Roma-Via Padova 38a
MB p.zza Bologna
Telephone: 06.44 23 80 26

The Pizzico Ensemble was created with the intent to promote a repertoire dedicated to compositions for harpsichord, mandolin, vocals and strings now forgotten. The repertoire experienced its heyday in the eighteenth century along with a lot of mandolin composers such as: Paganini, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Vivaldi and others.
    

“The new scholarship announcement related to the Vittore Branca Center is now available on our web site. The Vittore Branca International Center for the Study of Italian Culture is a new international resource for humanities studies open - with no age limits - to scholars, writers and artists interested in pursuing a research project focused on Italian (especially Venetian) culture, in one of the following disciplines: visual arts, history, literature, music, drama, early printed books.
  

After the success of last season's King Arthur, and following its exploration of the English lyrical repertoire, the Ensemble Jacques Moderne suggests another masterpiece from Purcell: Dido and Aeneas.
  

Sunday 11 Dec 2011 – Bruno Procopio
Cathédrale Saint-Louis des Invalides , Paris
« Hommage à Marcos Portugal » - Missa Grande
With Chœurs L’Echelle and Le Sans-Pareil

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Saturday 17 Dec 2011 – Amanda Favier
Salle Louis BARRAN à Moirans(38)
Vivaldi –  Four Seasons with Orchestre Piccola Musica

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Sunday 18 Dec 2011 – Amanda Favier
Église Notre –Dame de la Salette à Saint-Martin d’Hères (38)
Vivaldi –  Four Seasons with Orchestre Piccola Musica

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SVEC 2011:11, ISBN 978-0-7294-1022-9, xvi+346 pages, 35 ills, £65 / €80 / $110

“Combining cultural history, literary analysis, and studies in economics, material life and gender, Rebecca Haidt shows how clothing and display penetrated all corners of eighteenth-century Spanish society, and reveals the ambivalence of women who wore, traded, mended, bartered, sold, stole or created garments that came to mark their status in society.
  

The annual Big Give Christmas Challenge doubles online donations to charities during Big Give week. 

In the 2010 Challenge, our Trustees, Friends, Patrons and Supporters helped us raise £120,000 for our highly successful 2011 Spitalfields Festival residency.  We were deeply grateful and deeply touched by such amazing generosity from so many people, who donated sums ranging from £5 to £5000, each doubled by the Big Give. 
  

“Surprisingly, it was Gustav Holst, the composer of The Planets, who conducted the first modern performance of Purcell’s Fairy Queen in 1911.
  

“The National Centre for Early Music is pleased to announce the NCEM Composers Award 2012 which will be launched on BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show on Sunday 15 January 2012.

This major national award is a result of the continued success of the NCEM's partnership with BBC Radio 3 and internationally acclaimed vocal group The Tallis Scholars. The 2012 Award is open to composers up to the age of 25, divided into two age categories: up to 18 years and 19 to 25 years. The young composers are invited to write a new piece for The Tallis Scholars.
  

Hugo Reyne, flûte
Emmanuelle Guigues, viole de gambe
Claire Antonini, théorbe

With this program, Hugo Reyne finds comfort with the repertoire of the “sonata”. The intimacy of this music, “chambre” in nature, conducive to the expression of the greatest musical sensitivity.
  

“Always a sell-out, ABS's performances of Handel's enduring masterwork have garnered critical praise year after year. A stellar quartet of vocal soloists and the superbly polished American Bach Choir join the period instrument specialists of American Bach Soloists under the adroit musical direction of Jeffrey Thomas for one of Northern California’s most treasured holiday traditions.“
  

Magnificat Baroque Ensemble Sounds the Season
Palo Alto, Berkeley, San Francisco

Magnificat Baroque Ensemble and instrumental guests The Whole Noyse and Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, join forces in splendiferous song, recreating the Christmas Vespers of the Dresden Court Chapel in 1660. "Each of the outstanding singers has a unique and beautiful sound, and the combination of their voices produces an exceptionally felicitous ensemble sound."—SFCV.org
  

“Handel’s oratorio Saul was the first dramatic oratorio that he wrote with a strong libretto.

Charles Jennens compilation, based on biblical sources, created a powerful structure which enabled Handel to create a work which became the first of his English music dramas.
  

“Alfredo Bernardini, Guest Director and Oboe Soloist

Baroque Dresden’s remarkable court orchestra attracted Europe’s best instrumentalists and composers, resulting in flashy, stunning and technically demanding music. Join Tafelmusik, directed by the dynamic and entertaining Italian oboe virtuoso Alfredo Bernardini, for music by Fasch, Pisendel, Telemann and Vivaldi.
  

From the Tudor Choir’s latest newsletter: Christmas concert, Holiday gifts and donations 

“Dear Friends of the Tudor Choir,

Le Parlement de Musique, Martin Gester will be performing Handel’s Messiah (the Dublin, 1742 version) in December.