“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
You remember Derek Chester, don’t you? He was one of three tenors who came to sing our unforgettable Monteverdi Vespers in 2010. Today he mentioned my name in a Facebook link to the publication, examiner.com (published just today, February 24, 2015), and was I ever surprised to find this picture! The title of the article by… Read More Still speaking to me
Can you believe it’s been almost two years since we celebrated Claudio Monteverdi’s 400th anniversary with two ground-breaking performances of his Vespers of 1610? Now we will celebrate the music of Giovanni Gabrieli (1554-1612), and this time it’s the 400th anniversary of his death. Over the past couple of weeks, Carl Crosier has been hard at… Read More Glorious Gabrieli
At last night’s historic performance of the Monteverdi Vespers, about five minutes before we were to begin, a worried Carl Crosier came over to me at the organ and asked, “Do you know what’s going on? The bridge on Richard Savino’s theorbo has fallen off because of the humidity!” It was a rainy and humid… Read More Broken theorbo!
“Pulling out all the stops” — isn’t it great that an organ term is in the mainstream? It means to make every effort, and we have certainly tried to use every avenue to “get the word out” about this monumental undertaking. In mid-September we published and distributed our season brochure, and the day after our… Read More Pulling out all the stops for Monteverdi
Tonight is the first of two presentations about the upcoming Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 by Ian Capps, host of Hawaii Public Radio’s The Early Muse, at the station’s Atherton Studio, 738 Kaheka Street. Ian’s one-hour program on KHPR airs on Sunday nights at 9 pm and focuses on music before 1700. You probably heard Ian’s… Read More Ian Capps, The Early Muse