A Night’s Tale: The Tournament of Chauvency

Anne Azéma & Eric Mentzel direct
Featuring Shira Kammen, vielle & harp,
and an ensemble of UO students

Saturday, June 2, 2012, 8:00 p.m.

Anne Azéma and Eric Mentzel direct
“A Night’s Tale: The Tournament of Chauvency”
Featuring Shira Kammen, Vielle & harp, and an ensemble of UO students
Saturday, June 2
8 p.m. Willamette Hall Atrium, University of Oregon campus
Free and open to the public

Le Tournoi de Chauvency is a seductive tale of the tournament and festivities held at Chauvency-le-Château in October 1285, reported by the poet Jacques Bretel. The Musicians and the Romantics--the students of MUS 4/507 and RL 4/507--will perform magnificent songs and poems of youth, chivalry, erotic intrigue and passionate romance, as celebrated in more courtly times.

Anne Azéma’s visit is co-sponsored by: the Oregon Humanities Center’s Endowment for Public Outreach in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities; the Tom and Carol Williams Fund for Undergraduate Education; the Robert M. Trotter Fund of the UO School of Music and Dance; the Giustina Family Professorship in Italian Language and Literature; the UO Department of Romance Languages; the UO Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs; the UO Dean of Graduate Research; the UO College of Arts and Sciences; and the UO Department of Comparative Literature.

George Friedrich Handel’s “Agrippina”

Saturday, May 26 & Sunday, May 27 in Portland

Baroque Opera Workshop
presents
George Friedrich Handel’s
“Agrippina”

Saturday, May 26 & Sunday, May 27 • 7:00 p.m. Multnomah Arts Center Auditorium
7688 SW Capitol Highway • Portland, Oregon 97219 • 503-823-ARTS

'Agrippina' is considered Handel’s first operatic masterpiece; according to Winton Dean it has few rivals for its “sheer freshness of musical invention.” Grimani’s libretto has also come in for much praise: The New Penguin Opera Guide describes it as one of the best Handel ever composed, and praises the “light touch” with which the characters are vividly portrayed. 'Agrippina' as a whole is, in the view of scholar John E. Sawyer, “among the most convincing of all the composer’s dramatic works.”

Directors: David Kerr, Sue Jensen, David Rivinus
Singers:
Linda Tsatsanis • Agrippina
Catherine Olson • Poppea
Abraham Hardy • Claudio
Anna Rikli • Nerone
Beth Madsen Bradford • Ottone
Orchestra:
Linda Melsted, David Kerr, Elizabeth Doty, Byron Laing, Alberta Hardy • Violins Samuel Zacharia • Viola
Kohler Johnson, Keahi Horowitz • Cello Paul Pitkin • Oboe
Assisted by members of Portland Baroque Orchestra
Curtis Daily • Double Bass
Susan Jensen • Harpsichord
joined by
Hideki Yamaya • Archlute

Suggested donation: $20. Proceeds benefit the performers and the Multnomah Arts Center Association.

Candens Lilium: Vox Resonat Goes Medieval

FRIDAY, MAY 18, 2012   8:00 PM

Vox Resonat

Candens Lilium: Vox Resonat Goes Medieval
8:00 PM on Friday, May 18, 2012
Central Lutheran Church, 18th and Potter, Eugene

Vox Resonat, an ensemble of vocal solists directed by Eric Mentzel, presents a concert of rarely-heard medieval music for the first time in Eugene. The program title, Candens Lilium, evokes the image of the white lily to which the Virgin was often compared. The ensemble consists of 10 vocalists who sing together or in various smaller combinations. Repertoire includes music from Notre Dame de Paris, medieval Aquitaine, the Old Hall Manuscript and from the Spanish convent of Las Huelgas, as well as Italian laude, English carols, and motets from 14th century France.

Whether you come for the contemplative conductus or the ecstatic organa, there is no better way to celebrate Mary's month.

Suggested donation: $10 / $5 for students and senior citizens.
Visit Vox Resonat on Facebook or at www.voxresonat.wordpress.com.

Harpsichord and Viol

SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2012,  4:00 p.m.
Joanna Blendulf and Julia Brown

Concerts at First presents “Harpsichord and Viol”, a concert of music for viola da gamba and harpsichord from the high Baroque with Joanna Blendulf and Julia Brown on Sunday, May 20 at 4 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive Street, Eugene.  The program includes works by Marais, d’Hervelois, C. P. E. Bach, W. F. Bach and J. S. Bach.

Suggested donation $10.  The audience is encouraged to bring canned goods for Food for Lane County.

For more information: www.eugenefumc.org

Joanna Blendulf has performed as soloist and continuo player in leading period instrument ensembles throughout the United States. Ms. Blendulf holds performance degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Indiana University, where she studied with Stanley Ritchie, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and Alan Harris. In 1998, she was awarded the prestigious Performer's Certificate for her accomplishments on baroque cello from Indiana University. Joanna performs with the Portland, Seattle and Indianapolis Baroque Orchestras, Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra and American Bach Soloists and has also been a member of Apollo's Fire Baroque Orchestra and the New York Collegium. Ms.  Blendulf is an active chamber musician, performing and touring with the Catacoustic Consort, American Baroque, Ensemble Mirable, Reconstruction, the Streicher Trio and Wildcat Viols. Her recording of the complete cello sonatas of Jean Zewalt Triemer with Ensemble Mirable can be found on the Magnatune label. Ms. Blendulf's summer engagements have included performances at the Bloomington, Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals, the Aspen Music Festival as well as the Carmel and Oregon Bach Festivals.

Julia Brown is currently Director of Music and Organist at First United Methodist Church in Eugene, Oregon, while also maintaining a full schedule of teaching, performing and recording.  Brown has appeared in concert in North and South America and in Europe, having performed for American Guild of Organists Regional and National Conventions, Latin American Organist Conventions, the Oregon Bach Festival, and National Public Radio.  As a Naxos recording artist, her releases of Scheidemann and Buxtehude on Brombaugh and Pasi organs have received high critical acclaim.  Discography also includes “Christmas Concert” on the historic organ in Mariana, Brazil and “Bach Organ Favorites” on the Taylor & Boody in Indianapolis.  Brown is currently recording keyboard and organ works of W. F. Bach for Naxos.  Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brown studied piano, harpsichord and organ in her native Brazil before receiving her MM and DMA from Northwestern University as a student of Wolfgang Rübsam.

'Une aventure vos dirai': Performing Medieval Texts and Songs in the 21st Century

FRIDAY 11 MAY, 2012,  3:15pm

Anne Azéma

Anne Azéma, our distinguished artist in residence and Trotter Visiting Professor at the School of Music and Dance, will give a talk this Friday May 11th at 3:15 in the Collier House on the UO campus. Her lecture is part of the regular THEME series in SOMD, and is entitled

"'Une aventure vos dirai': Performing Medieval Texts and Songs in the 21st Century"

Anne's residency is sponsored by The Tom and Carol Williams Fund for Undergraduate Education; the Oregon Humanities Center Visiting Scholar Fund; the Oregon Humanities Center Endowment for Public Outreach in the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences; the Robert M. Trotter Endowment Fund, SOMD; the Giustina Family Professorship in Italian Language and Literature; the Department of Romance Languages; the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs; the Departments of Musicology and Voice, SOMD; the Dean of Graduate Research; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the Department of Comparative Literature.

HANDEL AT HOME

SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2012, 3:00

Oregon Bach Collegium

SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2012, 3:00 at United Lutheran Church, 2230 Washington Street, Eugene. HANDEL AT HOME, a concert of chamber music presented by members of the Oregon Bach Collegium.

Tickets at the door $10 general admission, $5 students.

For more information, email Oregon Bach Collegium
 
The repertoire for this program is taken from the variety of publications by the London publisher John Walsh, who took full advantage of Handel’s growing popularity. Walsh brought forth a steady stream of solo and trio sonatas with continuo, as well as harpsichord suites and arrangements of his best-loved operatic arias. After the overwhelming success of Handel’s first Italian operas for the London stage, the public’s appetite for his music became well-nigh insatiable. Walsh continued to press Handel for instrumental works to satisfy this burgeoning market, and set his musical craftsmen to create arrangements of his most popular tunes. Observing the profitable commerce in his music, Handel quipped to Walsh “Next time, YOU write the opera and I will publish it!” The Oregon Bach Collegium members have chosen several gems from these collections, all geared toward professional musicians who entertained the lovers of music in their homes. Performers include Michael Sand, baroque violin, Marc Vanscheeuwijck, baroque ‘cello, Margret Gries, harpsichord, Nancy Elliot, recorder, Dave Rogers, archlute and Jim, Rich, recorder, baroque oboe and voice.

Battle of the Bands: Le Roi Soleil and Sanssouci take on the Dresden Hofkappelle

Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 4:00 p.m.

Concerts at First presents Battle of the Bands: Le Roi Soleil and Sanssouci take on the Dresden Hofkappelle on Sunday, May 6 at 4 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive Street, Eugene.  Suggested donation $10.



At the courts of Louis XIV, Frederick II (The Great), and Frederick Augustus I (The Strong), musical life in the cities of Paris, Berlin/Potsdam, and Dresden flourished. François Couperin, J. M. Hotteterre (Paris), C. P. E. Bach (Berlin), W. F. Bach (Dresden), J. J. Quantz (Dresden, Berlin, Potsdam) and others provide the musical material for Seattle-based Baroque Northwest: Kim Pineda (Baroque flute), Max Fuller (viola da gamba), August Denhard (lutes), and Julia Brown (harpsichord).

The audience is encouraged to bring canned goods for Food for Lane County.

For more information: www.eugenefumc.org

This program is also being performed in Seattle on Friday, May 4 at 7:30pm. at Trinity Parish Church (609 8th Ave, at James).  Pre-concert talk at 7pm.  Tickets $10, $20 and $25.

For more information: www.baroquenorthwest.com

Kim Pineda has performed on transverse flute, recorder, and as a conductor throughout the U.S., Canada, in Israel, and on NPR. Founder and music director of Baroque Northwest, he performs regularly with leading early music ensembles in the U.S. He has performed at the Boston, Berkeley, Long Beach Bach, and Bloomington early music festivals, Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival, and has recorded on the Focus, Centaur, and Origin Classical labels. Kim received the Master of Music degree from Washington University, St. Louis, and the Bachelor of Music degree from California State University Northridge. He has taught at Indiana University, USC, North Seattle Community College, at workshops sponsored by the San Francisco and San Diego early music societies and the Seattle Recorder Society, and directs Baroque Northwest's Baroque Flute Boot Camp in Seattle. Kim is currently pursuing a PhD in Musicology from the University of Oregon. Other interests include the culinary, martial, and healing arts, cycling, zymurgy, and the pursuit of the ultimate cadence. In his spare time he reads non-fiction.

Max Fuller, cello and viola da gamba, has been performing since the age of 12. As a teenager he won the grand prize of the Phoenix Symphony Guild competition, and subsequently studied at the National Music Camp at Interlochen and the Tanglewood Institute. He received his Bachelor and Master degrees from the Julliard School, and has attended the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, and the Fountainebleau School in France. At the Mannes School in New York he studied baroque cello and viola da gamba with Myron Lutzke and Ken Slowik. He has worked with the New York Consort of Viols and New York University Collegium Consort. While living in New York, Max performed with Chamber Sound at Merkin Hall, the Maplewood ensemble for New York Public Television, New York's Musica Viva, Musica Antique, the Saratoga Baroque Festival, the Long Island Baroque Ensemble, as well as Philadelphia's Philomel and Michigan's Ars Musica. While living in Arizona, Max performed throughout the state with Musica Dolce, and recorded for Omni Classics. In the Pacific Northwest he has performed with the Portland Baroque Orchestra, the Portland Viol Consort, the William Byrd Festival and David Trendell, and ensemble La Stella at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

August Denhard has directed performances for Ardo Opera and the Bloomington Early Music Festival. Works to his credit include John Blow's Venus and Adonis, Claudio Monteverdi's Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi and L'Incoronazione di Poppea, and Tom s Torrej"n de Velascos La Purpura de la Rosa. As Executive Director of the Early Music Guild of Seattle he has overseen and performed in all of the Guilds opera productions: Two Monteverdi Chamber Operas, Venus and Adonis, and L'Incoronazione di Poppea. As a performer on lute, theorbo and Baroque guitar, he has appeared with Chicago Music of the Baroque, the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Seattle Baroque, and the Concord Ensemble, among others. In Seattle he is the co-director of the Continuo Ensemble, a community ensemble devoted to 17th-century vocal music. He received his Doctor of Music degree from the Early Music Institute of Indiana University in May of 2006, and his dissertation, Lute Realizations for the English Cavalier Songs (1630-1670): A Guide for Performers, has been published online by the Lute Society of America. His first solo recording, Cusp of the Baroque, can be viewed at http://cdbaby.com/cd/denhard/.

Julia Brown is currently Director of Music and Organist at First United Methodist Church in Eugene, Oregon, while also maintaining a full schedule of teaching, performing and recording. Brown has appeared in concert in North and South America and in Europe, having performed at the Oregon Bach Festival, Astoria Music Festival, American Guild of Organists Regional and National Conventions, Latin American Organist Conventions, and National Public Radio. She is a founding member of Cascade Consort and other early music ensembles and performs duo concerts with Barbara Baird. As a Naxos recording artist, her releases of Scheidemann and Buxtehude on Brombaugh and Pasi organs have received high critical acclaim. Discography also includes Christmas Concert on the historic organ in Mariana, Brazil, Bach Organ Favorites and harpsichord Fantasias of W. F. Bach. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brown studied piano, harpsichord and organ in her native Brazil before receiving her MM and DMA from Northwestern University as a student of Wolfgang Rübsam. She is currently recording harpsichord and organ works of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach for Naxos.

Dueling Pipe Organs

 Saturday, May 5, 2012

A program of Dueling Pipe Organs will be present on Saturday, May 5, 2012.  This free concert is at 2:00 pm in the Atrium building courtyard, located on the corner of 10th and Olive in Eugene.

On Saturday, May 5, the 2 pm afternoon concert in the Eugene Atrium will feature two real pipe organs.  The Eugene Chapter of the American Guild of Organists will present a concert of antiphonal organ music on pipe organs that were built right here in Eugene, Oregon.  The portative pipe organs were created by David Petty & Associates, and each has 3 and 1/2 ranks of pipes.

The music will be performed by 5 pairs of organists, and will be from the literature, mainly baroque, written for multiple instruments.  One of the pipe organs will be located on the floor of the Courtyard, and the other from a balcony to heighten the antiphonal effects.  Audience members will be seated in the round and will be able to experience this great music in the wonderful acoustics of the Eugene Atrium.

ARMES ET AMOURS: THE GAME OF LOVE IN MEDIEVAL FRANCE

Eugene, April 27, 2012 – Anne Azéma and Shira Kammen
Fri, April 27, 8pm – 10pm
Beall Concert Hall, University of Oregon
Tickets: $10 general admission, $8 students and seniors

ARMES ET AMOURS: THE GAME OF LOVE IN MEDIEVAL FRANCE

This program focuses on the lighter and lustier side of the Middle Ages, far from monastic cloisters and cathedral vaults. The songs and poems deal with springtime, youth, erotic intrigue, and passionate romance, as celebrated in village revels, courtly chambers, and illicit trysting-places.

Anne Azéma (voice) and Shira Kammen (strings) are leaders in the  field of medieval singing and accompaniment. Each has recorded prolifically and toured worldwide; together, they devote their  enormous skill,  insight, and fantasy to the magnificent repertoires of medieval France, Provence, and Spain. French-born Azéma brings authentic language skills, a crystalline voice, and a gift for theatre; Kammen brings virtuoso technique on vielle, rebec,  and harp, as well as her famous flair, drive, and humour.

"Musical soul mates, Azéma and Kammen are at the height of their formidable powers in this recording. Azéma's gift for storytelling, her vocal freedom, the depth of her knowledge, and above all her purity of spirit and voice go straight to the heart of both song and listener. Kammen's accompaniments  are miracles in and of themselves: with the simplest of means, playing medieval fiddles and harp, she lifts the affect of each verse off the page. Her virtuosic dance interludes leap about with the most mischievous, infectious fun I've ever heard in medieval music." -- Toronto National Post, Canada

“Rich and varied…light and gracious…music filled with joy and hope…a vielle full of energy…a clear and pearly voice…Bravo and thanks!”  -- L'Union, Reims, France

Azéma’s visit is co-sponsored by: the Oregon Humanities Center Endowment for Public Outreach in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities; the Oregon Humanities Center Visiting Scholar Fund; the Robert M. Trotter Fund of the UO School of Music and Dance; the Tom and Carol Williams Fund for Undergraduate Education; the Giustina Family Professorship in Italian Language and Literature; the UO Department of Romance Languages; the UO Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs; the Departments of Musicology and Voice of the UO School of Music and Dance; the UO Dean of Graduate Research; the UO College of Arts and Sciences; and the UO Department of Comparative Literature.

Welcome to Early Music Events,

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