Summer 2016
Vol. 22 No. 2; Summer 2016
Indianapolis Early Music Goes Gold
The festival will mark its 50th-anniversary season with a host of enticing programs. “If music be the food of love, play on,” begins the most famous opening speech in Shakespeare. The line also supplies the title for the concert that will launch the 50th-anniversary season of Indianapolis Early Music’s Early Music Festival. The opening event
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Sarasa’s “Seven Last Words”
Contributed by Benjamin K Roe It was no easy task to compose seven adagios lasting ten minutes each, and to succeed one another without fatiguing the listeners; indeed, I found it quite impossible to confine myself to the appointed limits. – Franz Joseph Haydn Next to the Christmas holidays, there is no other time of
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The Foggy Dew
Article contributed by Benjamin K. Roe Yes, ‘tis the season for shamrocks, leprechauns, and a bender or two. A good time to check in on a new program just launched by the long-running West Coast baroque ensemble Musica Pacifica – a group that plays, in the words of critic Schwartz, “with both liveliness and a
Henry Purcell’s High School Musical: Heartbeat Opera performs Dido & Aeneas
contributed by Benjamin K. Roe Opera cuts to the chase—as death does. An art which seeks, more obviously than any other form, to break your heart. – Julian Barnes, Levels of Life In modern times, going to the opera can break your wallet as well as your heart. If you’d care to catch tonight’s Metropolitan Opera
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Musical Miracles
A recent press trip to Israel piqued my interest in that fascinating country’s early-music scene. Israel is at once ancient and new, like so much of what we are trying to do in our field, and I was curious about the history of the early-music revival, the active and retired performers and teachers, and the
Anonymous 4: Appearing and Disappearing
The admired a cappella ensemble bids the world farewell after three decades of radiant artistry. Sunday morning, August 3, 1986. The Upper West Side of Manhattan had been deserted by anyone who could get away, and not many showed up on West 99th Street at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, where four of us—two choir members
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Spreading the Gospel: Period Style for Modern Performers
Conductors with roots in early music are taking their expertise to symphony orchestras. There was a time, not so long ago, when modern performers tended to be wary of the early-music movement. Often, these two musical communities stood with their backs to each other, separated by a chilly silence. And occasionally a war of words
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