The Events section tells you what I’m up to for the next month or so and flags up similar future gigs. There’s also news of current and future projects, and the occasional blog post. You’re welcome to leave comments or ask questions (click the Comments link at the bottom) and you can sign up for regular updates by clicking on Subscribe.
MARCH 9 BBC2 Wales: interviews on the subject of Welsh tenors
programmes 2 – 4 March 16, 23 and 30; What Makes a Great Tenor (with Rolando Villazon) BBC 1 June 2 repeated June 5
MARCH 13 A Musical Banquet with Ariel Abramovich lute FEMAS Festival, Seville
next performance Barcelona May 4-9 with workshops in Castellon
MARCH 19 Duparc ‘work in progress’ with Liz Haddon piano postponed due to disappearance of piano!
next performances June 7 & 22 Lyons Concert Hall York: Schumann & Webern with surround sound electronic piano
March 30 Lisbon workshop at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa 3.00
(Contact Paulo Lourenco( lourenpf@gmail.com) for further details)
MARCH 31 Being Dufay Teatro Maria Matos, Lisbon
next performance Chicago Early Music Festival April 20
Transfer in Mysteria
This is the title of the new programme of sacred music by Josquin Desprez that I’m recording for ECM in the summer. The usual way of doing 15th century Franco-Flemish polyphony is with a cappella voices, but we now know that the music was performed in all sorts of different ways, depending on who wanted to do it and what resources they had. Although most music of the period appeared in versions for voices, once the prints or manuscripts entered circulation they were soon appropriated by instrumentalists and solo singers. There is a huge catalogue of sacred music intabulated for lute, vihuela, and even keyboards. There is a smaller repertoire of transcriptions for two vihuelas, some of which have a vocal part, giving a glimpse of a lost repertoire for solo voice. This programme imagines a mass performed by a singer and two vihuela players. It consists of movements of various masses intabulated for the two instruments, interspersed with chant and motets. The latter are based on intabulations of the polyphonic originals with an improvised solo voice which weaves in and out of the texture division style. For this programme Ariel Abramovich and I are joined by Lee Santana, and we reckon that this is the first time the music has been heard like this since the fifteenth century.
Being Dufay
We now have a new video on the dedicated Being Dufay site – a short collage compiled from the Australia performance. There are several gigs coming up – Lisbon this month then the Chicago Early music Festival (don’t try to get a US visa unless you have a lot of time, money and patience or an amazing manager…); in the summer we’ll be in Italy and Germany, and Ambrose will soon have a taster of the new piece which we’ll post on the website as soon as we can.
