“My heart is full…There is no greater experience than making music with other musicians.” (Jieun Kim Newland) So wrote Jieun Kim Newland on her Facebook page after last night’s faculty recital at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Soprano Diana Esparza and countertenor/baritone Phillip Hill presented a joint recital in three parts. The… Read More “My heart is full…”
If this had been a normal year, I would have been in Boston now, attending the biennial Boston Early Music Festival as I have done five or six times before. I would be fighting off jet lag and trying to keep my eyes open during the opening opera, “Le Carnaval de Venise,” although dazzled by… Read More Virtual BEMF
I was very pleasantly surprised this morning to see that a performance of Bach’s Concerto in A minor for four harpsichords was featured in CNN’s 5 Things to know for today for April 9, 2021. When I played the YouTube video by the Netherlands Bach Society, I was immediately transported to the nights of October… Read More Four harpsichord concerto
Next week Early Music Hawaii will present another delightful concert in its virtual season, the Diderot String Quartet with Harry Bicket in a program of 17th c. string music, called “Journey through Baroque Europe.” The program will include music by Castello, Biber, Muffatt, Krieger, and Durante. The premiere will take place next Friday, March 12th… Read More Period string quartet
This afternoon I am enjoying a virtual performance by the early music choral ensembles, Stile Antico, presented by the Boston Early Music Festival. Stile Antico is one of the world’s finest vocal ensembles, renowned for vibrant and expressive performances of music from the Renaissance. The concert was posted on the Boston Early Music Festival website… Read More All in the family
Tonight was the debut of a new duet partnership — myself with Scott Fikse, the director of Early Music Hawaii! Oh, we have collaborated in quite a few ways, with me playing the organ and he conducting, as we did as recently as last December when I played the Advent Organ Chorales concert (“Do you still… Read More A new duet partner!
“To edit it is to receive the kiss of death as a scholar. To perform it is to court disaster. To write about it is to alienate some of one’s best friends” was the 20th-century musicologist Denis Arnold’s pithy summary of the myriad questions surrounding Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers …” Gwilym Bowen I took this photo… Read More Monteverdi Vespers at Three Choirs
It was just about three years ago, that the Lutheran Church of Honolulu launched its historic performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610. You may remember how miraculous those performances were, in that the whole production, from conception to closing night, was a span of only five months. John Renke is St. Andrew’s Cathedral called Carl Crosier… Read More Remembering Monteverdi
No, we didn’t sing any Monteverdi during the six Christmas services the past three days, but I thought I’d share what I gave Carl for Christmas. It was a photo memory book of our Monteverdi Vespers performances, with lots of photos and the “behind-the-scenes” story. You can actually see the book here, and order one… Read More Christmas and Monteverdi
It has been just over a week since our Monteverdi concerts and that beautiful music is still stuck in my head! It seems like everywhere we go, we encounter people who were at one of the performances and were so profoundly moved by it all. For some people, it was almost a religious, “mountain-top” experience,… Read More Dear Friends of Monteverdi . . .