Last night I attended a board meeting of Early Music Hawaii whose 2015-2016 season will be called “Musica Poetica,” after the first concert which will be held on Saturday, September 19 at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu.
The season brochure I designed a week ago is already expected back from the printshop, but I thought I’d give you a sneak peek.
The term “Musica Poetica” applies in one form or another to every concert in the 2015-2016 EMH Series. Invented by 17th German musicians, it expresses composition in terms of classical rhetoric and poetry, replacing the traditional “musica theoretica” or “musica pratica” of the Renaissance and before.
The September concert is a direct tribute to this German inspiration, and I am excited by the appearance of Dana Marsh from the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University. Long-time music lovers in Honolulu may remember that Dana and Carl Crosier gave a countertenor duet recital in the LCH courtyard, called “The Art of the Countertenor.” Dana came to Hawaii several times on other visits to conduct the LCH Choir. Since then, he has been named Visiting Associate Professor of the IU Jacobs School of Music’s Historical Performance Institute. Check out his bio on the IU Faculty page here.
On this visit Dana will be bringing several members of the early music faculty at Indiana University with their sackbuts and cornettos in music by Schütz, Praetorius, Kittle, Scheidemann and others. Most thrilling will be the inclusion of several grand works which will be done in 21st-century “surround sound,” with choral and instrumental ensembles placed in various parts of the church. This, according to the brochure, “honoring a great musical tradition and its long-time architect and director, the late Carl Crosier.”
Other concerts in the 2015-2016 EMH season include visiting ensembles, El Mundo playing Spanish music and Ensemble Hesperus which will play period music as accompaniment to two silent films, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame ” (Kona) and “Robin Hood” (Honolulu). There will also be a concert called “Bridging the Centuries II” which contrasts early and contemporary settings of the same texts.
Sounds exciting, right?