Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Guild for Early Music

Early Music Month Festival Broadcast

March is Early Music Month. Join me this afternoon on The Classical Network for the first of two Noontime Concerts featuring highlights from the 2016 Guild for Early Music Festival.

Each year, the festival is held at Grounds For Sculpture, the not-for-profit sculpture garden, museum, and arboretum, located in Hamilton, NJ. This year’s festival will take place on the two stages of the Seward Johnson Center for the Arts, with possible supplementary performances held outdoors by strolling musicians, weather permitting, this Sunday, March 18, from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. To find out more about this year’s Early Music Festival by the Guild for Early Music, look online at guildforearlymusic.org.

Or tune in: I’ll be joined today by Judy Klotz and Patricia Hlafter and on Friday by John Burkhalter and Janet Palumbo – all Guild musicians and board members – as co-hosts for music from the Medieval through Classical Periods. The fun begins today at noon.

Following today’s broadcast concert, stick around for a complete performance of “The Canterbury Pilgrims,” George Dyson’s choral music masterwork inspired by Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales.” Take a pilgrimage back in time from noon to 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Early Music America

March 13, 2018
Early Music Month on WPRB: Medieval to Modern

The pull of history will be strong tomorrow morning on WPRB, as we celebrate Early Music Month. We’ll examine the influences of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance on “contemporary” composers – that is to say, composers who lived within the past 100 years. In fact, several of them (William Kraft, Paul Lansky, and Kile Smith) are still very much with us.

At 9:00, I’ll be joined by John Burkhalter, a stalwart of the local Early Music scene and a member of the Guild for Early Music. He’ll fill us in on the Guild and its series of upcoming concerts featuring vocal and instrumental music from the 12th through the 18th centuries. The concerts will be presented by the Guild’s member groups throughout the month of March. You’ll find a complete schedule at guildforearlymusic.org.

Plainchant and polyphony, pavanes and galliards, madrigals and lute pieces, all will shimmer as if from a distant mirror, as we enjoy 20th and 21st century classics inspired by the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. I’ll be feeling a tad Middle Aged myself, on Classic Ross Amico.

#EarlyMusicMonth
Early Music America

March 2, 2017
Early Music Month on WPRB: A Funhouse Mirror

My, but it’s Early – Early Music, that is!

This morning on WPRB, don’t expect the usual duets for solo instrument and piano. In honor of Early Music Month, we’ll gaze into a distant mirror – albeit a funhouse mirror – glimpsing courtly dances, Gregorian chant, madrigals, and hymn tunes, transformed by “contemporary” composers – that is to say, composers who have worked over the course of the past century.

At 9:00, I’ll be joined by John Burkhalter, a stalwart of the local Early Music scene and a member of the Guild for Early Music. He’ll fill us in on the Guild and a series of upcoming concerts that will feature vocal and instrumental music from the 12th through the 18th centuries. The concerts will be presented by the Guild’s member groups throughout the month of March. You’ll find a complete schedule at guildforearlymusic.org.

Our playlist this morning will include music inspired by Elizabethan dances, a guitar concerto based on Renaissance madrigals, arrangements of virginal pieces and cantigas for different instrumental ensembles, and wind music based on early lute pieces, among others. Around 9:45 or 9:50, we’ll enjoy a recording of Philadelphia composer, writer, and radio personality Kile Smith’s “Vespers,” ably performed by The Crossing and Piffaro, The Renaissance Band.

It’s a taste of Merrie Olde Princeton, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. The bodkins are perpetually at odds, on Classic Ross Amico.

#EarlyMusicMonth
Early Music America

March 2, 2017
Early Music Festival at Grounds For Sculpture

You don’t have to be a Libra, have a grasp of “astrological houses,” or even know that the moon will be full on Sunday in order to reap the benefits of the zodiac. All you need to know is that the Guild for Early Music will be presenting its 12th annual Early Music Festival at Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton from 12:15 to 5 p.m.

“Our theme this year is ‘The Zodiac and the Night Sky,’ which was chosen to reflect the 12th festival,” says Judith Klotz, the Guild’s president. “We felt we had to do something with the number 12. Many of the groups will give nods in the titles of their pieces or the texts of their pieces to this theme. There are also many sculptures at the Grounds that relate to it. As always, there will be free sculpture tours to coordinate with the music.”

The festival will feature over a dozen ensembles in performances of vocal and instrumental works from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque eras. The mini-concerts will take place in the East and West Galleries of the Seward Johnson Center for the Performing Arts. The event is free with admission to the park.

Radio hosts from WWFM – The Classical Network will introduce and take part in the performances. An Early Music “petting zoo” will provide an opportunity to become familiar with instruments of yore such as the vielle, the viola da gamba, the dulcian and the cornetto. The atmosphere will be informal and relaxed, so feel free to take a break to stroll the grounds and enjoy the sculpture, the peacocks, the food and the foliage.

Interested in learning more? The details are not in our stars, dear Brutus, but in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/10/classical_music_12th_annual_ea.html

Lutenist John Orluk Lacombe will be among the featured performers at Sunday’s Early Music marathon

October 14, 2016
Early Music Fest at Grounds For Sculpture

It looks like the Guild for Early Music has taken care to make the appropriate sacrifices to Apollo, since the Sun God will again be smiling on the annual Early Music Festival at Grounds For Sculpture on Sunday (with mostly sunny skies in the forecast and highs in the lower 50s).

The concerts will be held indoors in two galleries at the Seward Johnson Center for the Arts, but the nice weather ensures that recorder players will stroll the grounds and that visitors will be able to take in the sculpture tours, luxuriate in a glorious autumn day, and receive inquiring looks from the peacocks, always on the alert for a potential handout.

14 Early Music groups will present music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque and Colonial Eras. The event will take place from 12:30 to 5 p.m. Grounds For Sculpture is located in Hamilton, on the site of the former New Jersey State Fairgounds. You’ll know you’re close when you start to encounter surreal roadside attractions like the 15-foot tooth and the sidewalk bicyclist.

Read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/10/11th_annual_early_music_festiv.html

October 16, 2015

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