The San Francisco Concert Chorale presents a rarely performed chamber performance of the B minor Mass, conducted by John Emory Bush and accompanied by the finest musicians from orchestras throughout the Bay Area.
Saturday, May 31, 8:00 - 10:00 pm
Mission Dolores Basilica, San Francisco
Tickets: $35 Advance / $40 at the door
Information: www.sfconcertchorale.org, 415-840-0675
This is a special opportunity to hear a charming Handel opera in which three singers share the limelight in a fantastic show of Handelian vocal virtuosity! The story of "Clori, Tirsi & Fileno" is one of timeless intrigue that is sure to entertain: The Ultimate Love Triangle!
Sunday, June 1, 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15.00 general/$12.00 sfems/$10.00 students,seniors, disabled. Nobody turned away for lack of funds.
Information: trinitychamberconcerts.com, 510-549-3864
Medieval music meets European modal traditions in an enticing instrumental setting of vielle, harp, recorders, and percussion
Sunday, June 1, 7:00 - 8:30 pm
St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel, 2543 Durant Street
Tickets: $10-$20 sliding scale
Information: www.annettebauer.com, 510-847-7023
Peter Hallifax and Julie Jeffrey, viols
Hallifax & Jeffrey are back by popular demand, again playing the complete published works of Forqueray, one suite each day, Monday through Friday at 11 a.m. Don't miss this event, described by the SF Classical Voice as "the most daring Fringe endeavor . . . Hallifax $ Jeffrey have discovered that this combination is rich, and the music of Forqueray certainly deserves more hearing . . . astounding."
This time however, there will be FREE COFFEE AND DOUGHNUTS for the first 25 people. After supplies run out, you're welcome to bring your own and enjoy Forqueray with the refreshment of your choice.
Monday, June 2, 11:00 - 11:40 am: Suite 1 in d.
Tuesday, June 3, 11:00 - 11:40 am: Suite 2 in G.
Wednesday, June 4, 11:00 - 11:40 am: Suite 3 in D.
Thursday, June 5, 11:00 - 11:40 am: Suite 4 in G.
Friday, June 6, 11:00 - 11:40 am: Suite 5 in C.
St. Mark's Episcopal Church Parish Hall, 2300 Bancroft Way
Tickets: General: $12; Pacifica Viols members, seniors, and students: $10. Series: $35/$25
Information: pjhallifax@earthlink.net, 510-220-1195
Aaron Westman, baroque violin; Shirley Hunt, viola da gamba; JungHae Kim, harpsichord; Kevin Cooper, baroque guitar; and Daniel Zuluaga, theorbo
A program of vibrant, rustic, elegant, and virtuosic 17th Century trios for violin, viola da gamba, and continuo, sonorously accompanied by harpsichord, baroque guitar, and theorbo. This program features German and Austrian works by composers active in the late 17th Century: Buxtehude, Erlebach, Muffat, and Schmelzer. Join Agave Baroque in their debut program.
Monday, June 2, 1:30 - 2:45 pm
MusicSources, 1000 The Alameda (at Marin)
Tickets: $12 general/$8 SFEMS, students, and seniors
Information: 707-490-2601
Teddie Hwang, traverso: Bernard Gordillo, harpsichord
A program of music by French composers who were inspired by Corelli and Vivaldi: Leclair, Couperin, Chédeville, and Blavet.
Monday, June 2, 2:00 - 3:00 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15 general, $12 SFEMS members, $10 seniors/students/disabled. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Information: bernardgordillo.com/ensemble/
Sixteenth century lute songs from continental Europe; an evening concert of rare jewels and new arrangements from the Renaissance.
Monday, June 2, 4:00 - 5:00 pm
St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel, 2543 Durant Street
Tickets: $10 tickets, no one turned away for lack of funds
Information: dschaner@bu.edu, 760-638-0925
Plucked instruments throughout Western history have shared these common values: solo capability through polyphony, tonal intimacy expressed in a dynamically limited yet infinitely nuanced variety of colors (what Segovia called "a miniature orchestra from a planet much smaller yet more refined than ours,") and the spiritual and aesthetic ideals of emulating the lyre of Orpheus. The early music revival of our time has admirably revived the lute of the Renaissance and the Baroque. At the same time it has curtailed the artistic imagination of many, who succumbed to the thinkings of the "authenticity police" that to be a specialist necessarily means performing music from a limited time window, sometimes as little as 50 years.
Franklin Lei, who spent many decades learning and concertizing internationally on the lute, wishes to expand his own musical horizon to perform on a variety of instruments, from the lute family to the classical guitar and fingerstyle Jazz. Franklin's program for the 2008 Berkeley Festival Fringe (at Trinity Chapel on Monday June 2 at 6:30 pm) takes the listener from Dresden's Zwinger Palace in the 1720s all the way to the beaches of Rio de Janeiro of the 1960s, with some outstanding American Jazz tunes (Cole Porter, Bill Evans) in between. The musical splendour of Dresden - Silvius Leopold Weiss's Partita in d - is balanced with the national stylists of Latin America (Brouwer and Villa-Lobos) as well as the best of popular guitar music by the great Brazillians Tom Jobim and Roberto Baden-Powell. An evening for all lovers of all plucked instruments.
Monday, June 2, 6:30 - 7:45 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15 general, $12 SFEMS members, $10 seniors/students/disabled. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Information: TBA
San Francisco’s highly acclaimed professional choral ensemble, AVE (Artists’ Vocal Ensemble) is pleased and excited to announce the forthcoming single performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s Il Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610), regarded as the greatest single contribution to the Western canon during the seventeenth century. The concert will be part of the SFEMS Fringe Series of the 2008 Berkeley Festival and Exhibition. It has been many years since the Bay area has enjoyed a live performance of this glorious work, especially with a modest-sized ensemble of professionals (just as the composer, himself, envisioned the work). Jonathan Dimmock, a noted performer of early music, has assembled 16 professional singers and 12 instrumentalists (including members of the Bay Area’s acclaimed Renaissance wind band, The Whole Noyse) to bring this piece to life. AVE will perform the Vespers with 17th-century period instruments, including: portativ organ, cornetts, sacbuts, recorders, chitarrone, Renaissance harps, curtal, flutes, viola, violins, and violone.
Monteverdi composed the Vespers as an audtion piece for the post of Music Director of St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice. He successfully combined the old style of music composition (traditional polyphonic writing) with the new style of the day (operatic), thus setting the stage for sacred music writing for the next 300 years. No master matched his genius in this regard for another 100 years (in the cantatas and Passions of Johann Sebastian Bach).
Monday, June 2, 8:00 - 10:00 pm
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way
Tickets: General admission is $35 for preferred seating and $25 for regular seating. Student and senior
admission is $25 for preferred seating and $15 for regular seating.
Information: www.ave-music.org
A candle-lit evening of 17th century French Baroque music, readings and dance performed by the Gordis siblings.
Monday, June 2, 8:30 - 9:30 pm
MusicSources, 1000 The Alameda (at Marin)
Tickets: Free-Donations Welcome
Information: 510-524-4318, www.freewebs.com/theatredelaparolelyrique
Frances Blaker - recorders, Barbara Blaker Krumdieck - cello, Henry Lebedinsky - harpsichord/organ
Heartfelt English chamber music for recorder, violin, cello, and harpsichord/organ, including works by Purcell, Locke, and Lawes.
Tuesday, June 3, Noon - 1:00 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15.00 general/$12.00 sfems/$10.00 students,seniors, disabled. Nobody turned away for lack of funds.
Information: trinitychamberconcerts.com, 704-560-0101 or 510-559-4670
Seattle native Elizabeth C. D. Brown explores the lives and music of three extraordinary women. The German Princess Elisabeth von Hessen (1596-1625) was raised in a very cosmopolitan and artistic household, as directed by her father Landgraf Moritz von Hessen, also known as a composer. She received the same education as her brothers and, based on the difficulty level of the pieces in her recently published lute manuscript, she reached a high level of proficiency as a lutenist. Princess Anne (1709–1759) was the daughter of King George II of England who chose to marry the Dutch ruler William IV of Orange, and ruled with him as an equal partner. Her manuscript of solo guitar works is made up mostly of French dances in the new gallant style, but also includes some remarkable examples of music with a distinctive Gaelic influence. The French composer and virtuoso harpsichordist Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (ca. 1665–1729) wrote a variety of works, including a volume of solo harpsichord pieces, the well-received opera, Cephale et Procris and several violin sonatas, all at a time when women composers were considered an oddity, at best. Following a common practice of baroque guitarists, Ms. Brown will perform her own arrangements of works from Jacquet de la Guerre’s dramatic violin sonatas, which are remarkable for their complex harmonies and quickly shifting tonalities, as well as a daring mix of French and Italian styles.
A specialist in standard classical guitar as well as various early guitars and lutes, Elizabeth C. D. Brown of Seattle, Washington is a very active performer throughout the Pacific Northwest, giving an average of 50 concerts a year. Known for her musically passionate performances, she has given solo recitals and performed concertos throughout the United States and in Canada. In addition, she has been a featured soloist for the Seattle Bach Choir, Fresno Pacific University’s Musica Pacifica Baroque, the Northwest Chamber Chorus, Pacific Lutheran University’s Choral Union and St. Mark’s Cathedral Associates. Ms. Brown’s first solo recording, La Folia de España: Dances for Guitar, features works for baroque, 19th century, and modern guitars, and has been warmly welcomed by the early music and guitar communities. Also active as an ensemble musician, Ms. Brown is a member of Baroque Northwest, La Lira, the Puget Sound Consort and Ayres and Graces, and has appeared in the Early Music Guild's three baroque opera productions and with various other ensembles. An enthusiastic advocate for the guitar and lute, Ms. Brown has given numerous outreach performances at schools, senior centers, and community centers for the Seattle Classic Guitar Society and the Early Music Guild, as well as by arrangement while on tour. She is head of the Guitar and Lute program at Pacific Lutheran University, and has taught at Seattle Pacific University, the Accademia d’Amore (baroque opera workshop, Seattle), the Baroque Boot Camp (Seattle), Music Center of the Northwest, and at the Lute Society of America’s annual workshop.
Tuesday, June 3, 4:00 - 5:00 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15 general, $12 SFEMS members, $10 seniors/students/disabled. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Information: www.elizabethcdbrown.com, 510-549-3864
Much early English music was lost after the break with Rome. Surviving choral works display "la contenance angloise," by Dunstable, Leonel Power, Robert Fayrfax, etc.
Tuesday, June 3, 5:30 - 6:30 pm
Berkeley City Club
Tickets: $12/6
Information: 510-843-0450
The King's Trumpetts and Shalmes gets the 2008 Festival off to a rousing start with a lively program of Renaissance music for shawms and sackbut, crumhorns, and recorders.
Tuesday, June 3, 6:30 - 7:30 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15 general, $12 SFEMS members, $10 seniors/students/disabled. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Information: 415-752-7290
Joanna Blendulf, Julie Jeffrey, and Elisabeth Reed, with guest artists Farley Pearce, David Morris, and William Skeen
Seventeenth-century England’s most perfect chamber ensemble, the six-part viol consort, inspired the most ambitious and imaginative music from the best composers of the age. This program explores this richly varied repertoire, from William Brade’s lively dances, to the elegant fantasies of William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, and John Jenkins, to the uniquely sublime and quirky fantasy-suites of William Lawes.
Tuesday, June 3, 8:00 - 10:00 pm
Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley Campus
Tickets and information: Berkeley Festival Box Office
The Women's Antique Vocal Ensemble (WAVE) will present a concert of English music composed during the reigns of Henry V, Henry VI, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, James I, Charles I, and William and Mary. From the Old Hall Manuscript of the late medieval era to the 1694 birthday ode for Queen Mary by Henry Purcell, sacred and secular compositions from 200 years of English musical tradition will be performed. WAVE will be joined by Katherine Heater on harpsichord, Shira Kammen and her viol consort, Howard Kadis on lute, and Joyce Johnson-Hamilton on cornetto and Baroque trumpet.
Tuesday, June 3, 8:00 - 10:00 pm
St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way
Tickets: $15 general/$5 students and seniors (wheelchair accessible)
Information: www.wavewomen.org; wavewomen@netzero.net; 510-233-1479
This is a special opportunity to hear a charming Handel opera in which three singers share the limelight in a fantastic show of Handelian vocal virtuosity! The story of "Clori, Tirsi & Fileno" is one of timeless intrigue that is sure to entertain: The Ultimate Love Triangle!
Wednesday, June 4, Noon - 1:30 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15.00 general/$12.00 sfems/$10.00 students,seniors, disabled. Nobody turned away for lack of funds.
Information: trinitychamberconcerts.com, 510-549-3864
A lunchtime concert of pop tunes from the Renaissance.
Wednesday, June 4, 1:00 - 2:00 pm
St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel, 2543 Durant Street
Tickets: $10 tickets, no one turned away for lack of funds
Information: dschaner@bu.edu, 760-638-0925
Recorderists David Barnett & Tom Bickley: 21st century music with 14th century insights and vice versa. Engaging works by Landini, Geysen, Bickley, Rzewski and more.
Wednesday, June 4, 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15 general, $12 SFEMS members, $10 seniors/students/disabled. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Information: www.metatronpress.com/artists/ttt, 510-204-0607
Jennifer Rhyne, baroque flute; Kathryn Habedank, harpsichord; Elizabeth Brown, lutes/baroque guitar; Paul Tegels, organ; James L. Brown, tenor; Svend Rønning, violin
Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, WA) Faculty Consort present a concert of baroque music from the northern and southern ends of the European continent. PLU’s music department has an active early music program. Along with regular faculty recitals during the year featuring early music in a historically informed way, there are also student ensembles which perform early music on a regular basis. In November, 2007 the PLU Opera workshop produced Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo featuring Stephen Stubbs as Music Director.
Each of the PLU faculty members will be featured in solos and chamber works. Featured composers will include J.S. Bach, Buxtehude, Carissimi, Clérambault, Gasparini, Monteverdi, Santiago de Murcia and Purcell.
Wednesday, June 4, 6:00 - 7:30 pm
St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way
Tickets: $10 (student, seniors, EMA, Festival Pass), $15 regular
Information: www.plu.edu/~voice/special-events/home.html, 253-535-7614
Rebecca Molinari, Ji-Sun Kim, Andrew Maruzzella, Alexa Raine-Wright, Andrew Levy, Morgan Jacobs ~ Recorders
Musicians across North America and Europe present an evening of music through time for recorder sextet with works by Aagesen, Byrd, Purcell, J.S. Bach, Desmond, Thorn, Manneke, and others.
Wednesday, June 4, 7:00 - 8:00 pm
St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel, 2543 Durant Street
Tickets: $15 General Admission, $10 Students, SFEMS Members, Seniors
Information: www.rebeccamolinari.com/events.html
Paul Flight, countertenor; Pablo Corá, N. Lincoln Hanks and Daniel Carberg, tenors; Matthew Leese, baritone; Scott Graff, bass-baritone
The period in Spanish history known as the Golden Age boasted the highest and most important cultural achievements of the country’s history and included the crowning achievement of Cervantes’ literary masterpiece, Don Quijote, and Garcilaso de la Vega’s poetry. An independent movement arose to contrast the somber and austere quality of church music with the sentimental and rhythmically animated works of Juan Vásquez and Cristóbal de Morales. This program features prominently the music of these two masters and intersperses a few glimpses of poetic genius from the era.
Wednesday, June 4, 8:00 - 10:00 pm
Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley Campus
Tickets and information: Berkeley Festival Box Office
Sarge Gerbode, lute; Jim Denton and John Conry, voice
Wrap yourself in the sound of a duet of voices with lute; enjoy wind (Zefiro), waves (O sia tranquillo), and war (Se vittorie), among others!
Thursday, June 5, 1:00 - 2:15 pm
St Joseph of Arimathea Chapel 2316 Bowditch, Berkeley
Tickets: Suggested $10 - No one turned away for lack of funds
Information: johnconry@sbcglobal.net, 510-230-7046
Leila Lazenby, voice; Shira Kammen, strings; Letitia Berlin and Frances Blaker, recorders; Barbara Blaker-Krumdieck, baroque cello; Robbie Link, bass; Henry Lebedinsky, harpsichord
An eclectic mix of Renaissance, Baroque and folk music.
Thursday, June 5, 4:00 - 5:15 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15 general, $12 SFEMS members, $10 seniors/students/disabled. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Information: trinitychamberconcerts.com, 510-559-4670
Why was the music of Ciconia (1370-1412), called "the first great Netherlander," with its jazz-like rhythmic sophistication and harmonic daring, imitated throughout 15th C. Europe?
Thursday, June 5, 5:30 - 6:30 pm
Berkeley City Club
Tickets: $12/6
Information: 510-843-0450
The concert on June 6 will feature an important Viennese fortepiano by Joseph Bohm made c 1828. This instrument was formerly owned by pianist Mary-Louise Boehm who used it in concerts at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. The piano was restored in Holland in the 1980s & is now in excellent playing condition, having undergone further work by Bjarne Dahl of Los Altos.
The piano has a range of 6.5 octaves & has 7 pedals including Janissary stop of 3 bells, cymbal clash & drum. It is ideal for late Schubert & Beethoven & the program will include Beethoven's Variations in D Op 76 on a Turkish March, & his two late sonatas Op101 & his longest sonata, Op 106 in Bb "Hammerklavier."
John Khouri is one of the most active early piano specialists in the U.S., regularly concertizing & recording on his 7 German & English fortepianos. He is known worldwide by his series of recordings on the Music & Arts label.
Thursday, June 5, 6:30 - 7:30 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15 general, $12 SFEMS members, $10 seniors/students/disabled. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Information: jkhouri@sbcglobal.net, 707-557-0261
Nanette McGuinness, soprano; Kindra Scharich, mezzo-soprano; Paul Hale, Baroque cello, Sarge Gerbode, archlute, Bruce Wetmore, virginal
The program includes solo cantatas by Benedetto Vinaccesi, arias and duets by Cavalli, Rossi, Strozzi, and Monteverdi, and a selection of seventeenth-century keyboard works.
Friday, June 6, Noon - 1:00 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15 general, $12 SFEMS members, $10 seniors/students/disabled. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Information: www.nanette.biz
Adrienne Simpson, soprano; Denise Doering, soprano; Marilyn Simpson, alto; Jim Denton, tenor and director; David Rounds, bass
Five voice a capella ensemble from Mendocino county, performing madrigals by Monteverdi, Marenzio, and Gesualdo.
Friday, June 6, 1:00 - 2:00 pm
St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel, 2316 Bowditch at Durant
Tickets: $10
Information: redtail@pacific.net, 707-468-0260
Enjoy the wonderful lute songs of Robert Johnson joined with songs of Purcell and Lanier, describing love's ebb and flow.
Friday, June 6, 4:00 - 5:10 pm
St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel, 2316 Bowditch at Durant
Tickets: Suggested $10 - No one turned away for lack of funds
Information: johnconry@sbcglobal.net, 510-230-7046
Cynthia Miller Freivogel, baroque violin; Daniel Zuluaga, theorbo; Elisabeth Reed, viola da gamba
The Mystery Sonatas of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, composed in the 1670s, stand at the pinnacle of music for the virtuoso violinist. Commemorating key events in the Christian calendar, they evoke a powerful range of emotion, from sorrowful to sublime, and display a rich polyphony and spiritual tone color unique to the baroque violin. This selection will highlight a distinctive feature of the sonatas, the use of scordatura, in which the violin is tuned differently for each piece.
Friday, June 6, 5:00 - 6:30 pm
Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley Campus
Tickets and information: Berkeley Festival Box Office
Grant Herreid, lute, guitar; Greg Ingles, sackbut, percussion; Joan Kimball, shawm, recorder, bagpipe; Christa Patton, shawm, harp, bagpipe; Priscilla Smith, shawm, recorder; Robert Wiemken, shawm, dulcian, recorder, percussion; Tom Zajac, sackbut, recorder, bagpipe, percussion
Paul Flight, countertenor; Pablo Corá, N. Lincoln Hanks and Daniel Carberg, tenors; Matthew Leese, baritone; Scott Graff, bass-baritone
From the Golden Age of Florence, under the reign of the notable and notorious Medici family and its dominant figure, Lorenzo the Magnificent, it’s carnival time, with its triumphal wagons, lascivious songs mocking the lanzi, songs of the penitents, motets, and lively dances making up the wide ranging repertoire of this glorious period in a fabled city’s history.
The humanist Marsilio Ficino mirrored a common belief that Florence was the “New Jerusalem” when he wrote, “This is an age of gold, which has brought back to life the almost extinguished liberal disciplines of poetry, eloquence, painting, architecture, sculpture, music, and singing to the Orphic lyre. And all this at Florence!” The city was as famous for its festivals and grand spectacles as it was for its artists, philosophers, and politicians. Present in these carnivals were all the complex and interwoven strands of Florentine life. An indispensable part of all the carnivals was the carro, or triumphal wagon (trionfo), elaborately decorated with banners, riding through the street accompanied by torches, singing, and theatrical productions— a moving tableau vivant, not unlike a float in a modern day parade.
Friday, June 6, 8:00 - 10:00 pm
Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley Campus
Tickets and information: Berkeley Festival Box Office
Grant Herreid, lute, guitar; Greg Ingles, sackbut, percussion; Joan Kimball, shawm, recorder, bagpipe; Christa Patton, shawm, harp, bagpipe; Priscilla Smith, shawm, recorder; Robert Wiemken, shawm, dulcian, recorder, percussion; Tom Zajac, sackbut, recorder, bagpipe, percussion
Join us for an enchanting journey into the musical world of the 15th and 16th centuries presented on a vast and varied collection of Renaissance instruments. Hear and see shawms, sackbuts, slide trumpets, dulcians, krumhorns, recorders, bagpipes, harp, lutes, guitars, and all manner of percussion in this program that will delight children of all ages.
Saturday, June 7, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley Campus
Tickets and information: Berkeley Festival Box Office
winds: John Harris, Robin Houston, Peggy Murray, Karen Nebelkopf, Mary Ellen Reed
viols: Margaret Cohen, Mary Elliot, Leslie Gold, Mary Prout
The rich sounds of Spain's Golden Age, featuring sacred and secular works of Cabezon, Guerrero, Ortiz, Vasquez, Victoria and Vivanco, including double and triple choir motets. With Alice Benedict, soprano, Tako Oda, counter-tenor, Jim Denton, tenor, and John Conry, bass.
Saturday, June 7, 12:30 - 2:00 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15 general, $12 SFEMS members, $10 seniors/students/disabled. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Information: trinitychamberconcerts.com, 510-233-0868
Patrick Ball: celtic harp, spoken word; Shira Kammen: vielle, medieval harp, voice; Tim Rayborn: lute, psaltery, medieval harp, voice
The long, dark nights of Medieval Europe were rich with stories. But one legend was told and beloved beyond all others, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult. Filled with love, passion, magic, and death, it captivated the listeners because it was the very mirror of their own hearts, minds and souls. And to raise the telling beyond the power of words there was music: the vielle, the harp, the drum, the psaltery, and the singing voice. All this made for evenings of brilliance and enchantment throughout the Dark Ages. In "The Flame of Love," Patrick Ball and The Medieval Beasts bring this same enchantment into our own time and place.
Saturday, June 7, 2:00 - 4:00 pm
International House, UC Berkeley Campus
Tickets: $12-$20
information: www.patrickball.com, 510-524-7952
Glen Shannon, a composer of music in historical styles, will present four pieces in three flavors. Italian Baroque will be represented by Vivaldi’s Ark Celebration Concerto, an exciting concerto for 12 (6 pairs- recorders, oboes, clarinets, trumpets, violins, cellos) plus solo cowbell and continuo, in a Very Vivaldi style. Two recorder ensemble works reminiscent of the Flemish Renaissance will be presented, and a French Baroque dance suite for traverso, oboe d’amore, violin and continuo will finish the set.
Saturday, June 7, 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15 general, $12 SFEMS members, $10 seniors/students/disabled. No one turned away for lack of funds.d
information: www.glenshannonmusic.com, 510-525-1249
Foolia reveals and unravels the mysteries underlying Music’s Grand Evolution from paleolithic origins to global warming. Susan Rode Morris, Shira Kammen, Katherine Westine, Phebe Craig, -- and special guest, Professor David Morris. Remember: More is more!
Sunday, June 8, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Berkeley Piano Club, 2724 Haste
Tickets: $15 general/$12 SFEMS members, seniors, students donation
Information: 510-601-9631
Mostly Motets will offer a combination performance and sing-along at 1:30 p.m. on June 8, 2008 at First Congregational Church of Berkeley. The event will be offered in conjunction with the 2008 Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, a week-long early music festival co-sponsored by the San Francisco Early Music Society. Audience members are invited to come to listen, to sing, or to do some of both. Sheet music will be available.
We will sing unaccompanied, sacred music mostly from the Renaissance and Middle Ages. Since that music is less familiar to most people than what is sung in more typical sing-alongs (e.g. the Messiah), the format will be a bit different. For each piece, Mostly Motets will first perform the piece with the audience listening (and perhaps reading through the sheet music). Immediately after that the audience will be invited to sing the same piece together with Mostly Motets.
Music selections will range from relatively familiar and easy to more unusual and challenging. All or most of the pieces will be drawn from music like the following:
William Byrd: Ave Verum Corpus
Chant: Ave Verum Corpus
Josquin Desprez: In Principio Erat Verbum
Guillaume Dufay: Alma Redemptoris Mater II (3-part)
Peter Lutkin: The Lord Bless You and Keep You
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Alma Redemptoris Mater
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: O Bone Jesu
Thomas Tallis: A New Commandment
Tomas Luis de Victoria: O Magnum Mysterium
Tomas Luis de Victoria: O Vos Omnes
Sunday, June 8, 1:30 - 3:00 pm
First Congregational Church, Dana at Durant
Tickets: $10 if purchased on or before June 3rd and $15 after that date (including cash sales at the door). Purchasing a ticket in advance assures that a seat and a program booklet (with sheet music) will be available for you. If tickets are still available when the event starts, those who cannot afford the full ticket price will be admitted for whatever donation they may wish to make. You can purchase tickets now by browsing to www.MostlyMotets.com or by calling (800) 838-3006. The event is wheelchair accessible.
Information: www.MostlyMotets.com, 707-575-7400
A lively and poignant program of harpsichord music by Scarlatti, Soler and Blasco de Nebra, performed on the colorful "Florentine" by John Phillips, Berkeley.
Sunday, June 8, 2:00 - 3:00 pm
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana at Durant
Tickets: $15 general, $12 SFEMS members, $10 seniors/students/disabled. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Information: trinitychamberconcerts.com, 510-549-1520