While it might be the Boulder area’s youngest and most specialized choral group, the 5-year-old Seicento Baroque Ensemble has experienced significant growth.
Partly to illustrate that, founder and artistic director Evanne Browne believes it is time to return to the monumental work that inspired the ensemble’s birth.
Claudio Monteverdi’s “Vespers of 1610” (also known as “Vespro della Beata Vergine”) is a 90-minute composition that exemplifies the early baroque style that is the speciality of Seicento, whose name is the Italian term for the 17th century. The “Vespers” also is regarded as the largest-scale significant work of religious music before Johann Sebastian Bach.
Seicento presents the piece in its entirety on Oct. 24 at Boulder’s First United Methodist Church and repeats the concert the following day at Denver’s St. Paul Lutheran Church.