If the early bird gets the worm, then Early Music gets the “serpent.”
The Guild for Early Music will present its 14th annual Early Music Festival at Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ, on Sunday, March 24. An afternoon of mini-concerts of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Early American music will be performed by over a dozen ensembles As always, the day will include sculpture tours, pop-up performances about the 42-acre grounds, and a “petting zoo” of early instruments – who knows, perhaps even a serpent (pictured).
Join me today for the first of two Noontime Concerts on The Classical Network, which will feature representatives of the Guild as my special guests. We’ll hear a selection of madrigals and canzoni performed by Delaware River Consort and La Spirita, Buxtehude and Bach sung by Princeton Pro Musica Chamber Chorus, and Bach and Couperin played by Le Triomphe de l’amour.
My co-hosts for today’s broadcast will be Judith Klotz and Janet Palumbo; on Friday, I’ll be joined by John Burkhalter and Abigail Chapman.
The 14th annual Guild for Early Music Festival is free with paid admission to the park. To find out more about the event, look online at guildforearlymusic.org or groundsforsculpture.org; then listen in this Tuesday and Friday at 12 p.m. EDT.
Following today’s concert broadcast, we’ll continue to honor Early Music Month, in our way, eyes locked in a distant mirror – albeit a bit of a funhouse mirror – as contemporary composers linger in the worlds of courtly dances, madrigals, and hymns.
At the same time, we’ll be keeping it local, with music for string orchestra inspired by 12th century abbess Hildegard von Bingen, by Philadelphia-born Aaron Jay Kernis; a playful work for guitar, loosely tied to early dance forms, by Princeton University professor emeritus Paul Lansky; an organ processional in the French Baroque style by Philadelphia-based composer Robert Moran; and a Vespers setting by composer, writer, and radio personality Kile Smith – in a recording that brings together The Crossing and Piffaro, The Renaissance Band, no less.
Everything will be faraway so close, from 12 to 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Early Music America
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