Early Music Now’s 29th season brings back three of its most popular ensembles, introduces a spectacular keyboard artist to our audience, and broadens its diversity with programs exploring Hispanic culture as well as Persian connections. The season begins with a fusion of Baroque and Latin traditions in a program celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, travels to the world of the fortepiano with music of Mozart and CPE Bach, and closes 2015 with a Christmas appearance of Anonymous 4 on their final tour. (This brings Early Music Now’s association with Anonymous 4 full circle, beginning with their appearance in Milwaukee in 1992 as part of their very first major tour!)
2016 begins with a program of music from Shakespeare’s plays to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his death, travels to Constantinople to experience the treasures of Persian musical culture, and concludes with choral music tracing the blurred boundaries between sacred and secular in the Renaissance. These Saturday concerts take place in several of Milwaukee’s landmark settings, with three concerts at 5:00 and three at 7:30.
The six shows that will be featured this year are:
Rumbarroco- Fiesta: A Hispanic Heritage Celebration
Oct. 17, UWM Helene Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts
This ensemble of world-class musicians focuses on intercultural fusion between musical traditions, including early European music of the Renaissance and Baroque and its confluence with the music of the Americas.
Rumbarroco celebrates the revitalizing, reciprocal alchemy that results when early Spanish, Sephardic, and Andalusian music meet the indigenous, African, and folk rhythms of Latin America.
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“Rumbarroco bridges early music and Latin rhythms delightfully.” South Florida Classical Review
Kristian Bezuidenhout- The World of Fortepiano,
Nov. 21, Schwan Hall at Wisconsin Lutheran College
This South Africa-born, London-based fortepianist trained with some of the world's leading early music experts at the Eastman Conservatory of Music. For him, there's no better vehicle than the fortepiano for exploring the crisp articulations, keenly articulated characters, and pointillistic levels of detail that can get lost inside a modern piano's heft and plushness. His Milwaukee recital will include works that Mozart – himself a master player – composed between 1781 and 1791, as well as two works by CPE Bach.
"The finest living exponent of the fortepiano.” The Herald, UK
Anonymous 4- The Last Noel
Dec. 19, Basilica of St. Josaphat
On their final tour, performing favorite music selected from their many Christmas recordings – music that breaks the barrier of time and speaks as eloquently today as it did in the Middle Ages. Rejoicing, lamenting, or recounting a timeless wonder, these are the songs that the women of Anonymous 4 simply have to sing together -- one last time.
“. . .the trademark sound was there as ever - pure, ethereal, ascetic.” Philadelphia Inquirer
The Baltimore Consort- The Food of Love
Feb. 13, St. Paul's Episcopal Church
A brand new program featuring its core repertory – music of the Elizabethan era – with songs and consort music from the Shakespeare plays. Soprano Danielle Svonavec performs some of the greatest hits from the Bard's songbook, including "It Was a Lover and his Lass," "Where the Bee Sucks," "Full Fathom Five," and "The Willow Song," and the BC instrumentalists perform dances and consort music related to the plays, using their "exquisite consort" of instruments--lute, cittern, viols, and flute.
“. . . perhaps the best balancing act of period authenticity, instrumental precision and sheer fun in the early music community today.” Times-Dispatch, Richmond, VA
Constantinople- Paths To the Summit
Mar. 19, UWM Helene Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts
Photo by Masoud Harati
This program sheds light on an obscure period in Persian history, when large numbers of Iranian musicians migrated to the neighboring Ottoman and Byzantine cultural centers during the Safavid dynasty (1501-1736). With the discovery and decoding of this repertoire, we shall be able to better understand the history of the art music of Iran and to reconstruct the broken bridge between the practices of its glorious past and those of its present.
“They open the doors to an extraordinary garden.” Radio-Canada-CBC
Stile Antico- Sacred or Profane?
Apr. 16, Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist
Photo by Marco Borggreve
As Stile Antico traces the blurred boundary between sacred and secular music in the Renaissance, we encounter risqué, racy chansons transformed by Lassus, Morales and Victoria into devout Masses and Magnificats, and ribald folksongs worked into prayerful polyphony by Dufay and Taverner. Most shockingly of all, and in spite of the Church’s disapproval, it was none other than the Cardinal of Milan who commissioned sacred texts to be fitted to some of Monteverdi’s most frankly erotic madrigals, crowning this survey of three centuries of superb music.
“An ensemble of breathtaking freshness, vitality and balance.” New York Times
Tickets to this bounty of world-class early music are available as individual concerts or in full or partial season packages in three seating sections, with discounts for 4- 5- or 6-concert packages. Each full 6-concert subscription also comes with a voucher for a free guest ticket for the concert of your choice.
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New this season, all orders will be delivered via email as “print-at-home” tickets, beginning July 1, with the option of choosing email or mail receipts to be redeemed at Will Call.
Visit EarlyMusicNow.org for tickets and additional information.
