I’ve just come from the Early Music Hawaii concert by Les Délices and to say it was outstanding is an understatement —it was medieval perfection!

There were only four people in the ensemble but two of them played several instruments: Debra Nagy (recorders, douçaine, harp and voice); Scott Metcalfe (vielle and gothic harp); Sophie Michaux (mezzo-soprano) and James Reese (tenor) and together they formed a tight ensemble, their voices perfectly blended and balanced with absolutely perfect intonation.

I was interested to learn that Debra is prîmarily an oboeist and Scott is primarily a violinist but they both played other instruments with ease and to a high professional standard.

I heard Scott tell someone that he taught himself to play the harp, which sounded amazing to me.

Sophie Michaux was my delightful houseguest and we got on extremely well. Her light but focused mezzo-soprano voice was a perfect match to James Reese’s mellifluous tenor, which has got to be the most beautiful tenor voice I’ve ever heard, just like honey!

What was amazing to me was to learn that Debra lives in Cleveland, Scott lives in Boston, Sophie lives in western Massachusetts and James lives in Philadelphia. They basically learned the music independently then only got together last Tuesday. By Thursday they were on a plane to Hawaii and arrived late that night. Tonight (Saturday) was the concert.

They will repeat it in Kona tomorrow and leave right after the 3:30 pm concert.

WOW!

In case you want to see the program, here is the PDF:

Definitely a first-class program! Way to go, Early Music Hawaii !