Boston Camerata Explores Early Christmas Music from Throughout Europe in Two Programs:
Puer Natus Est: A Medieval Christmas
Celebrating the role of the Nativity
In Dulci Jubilo: A German Christmas
The Boston Camerata’s Christmas concerts are by now a Boston-area and national tradition. This December, in response to popular demand, the ensemble will be performing two different but complementary programs, each celebrating a different dimension of the holiday season. The two productions, celebrating the Christmas music of Medieval France, Italy, England, and Renaissance Germany, will be heard in Boston, MA; Lexington, MA; Newbury, MA; La Jolla, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Schenectady, NY; and Cambridge, MA throughout the month of December.
The first of two programs, Puer Natus Est: A Medieval Christmas, December 2-11, celebrates the role of the Nativity and Mary in Christmas musical traditions. Christ’s birth and the specific themes of Annunciation, Advent, and Nativity make Christmas a holiday unique among other midwinter rites. As the Dark Ages waned, the relatively more stable living conditions of the 12th and 13th centuries encouraged a tremendous outburst of religious art, poetry, and music. But whereas the great monuments of medieval architecture, sculpture, and design are well known today, the musical world of the Middle Ages is often seen as somewhat mysterious.
Boston Camerata’s famous holiday concerts, however, make these distant sounds seem fresh and new. By using a combination of intuition, artistry, and historical research, the Boston Camerata, with its many years of experience performing these beautiful works, can do justice to the compelling musical material at hand. The program will feature a trio of women’s voices with Camerata director Anne Azéma, Camila Parias, Deborah Rentz-Moore; Christa Patton playing winds and harp; and Jacob Mariani on vielle.
The second December program, In Dulci Jubilo: A German Christmas, December 18-19, celebrates the joyous holiday music of Renaissance Germany in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Jubilant chants and chorales, simple carols, grandiose polyphony, and rich instrumental fantasias dominated the music of this period. Many melodies that came into being during the German Renaissance are still beloved and sung today during the holiday season in Europe and in America.
“I grew up in Strasbourg, France, right on the border of Germany,” says Boston Camerata Artistic Director Anne Azéma. “I heard both French and German spoken and sung from early childhood, and these Christmas melodies are part of who I am. What a joy to share them now, in my adopted home!”
A German Christmas will feature the Boston Camerata Wind Ensemble and an expanded consort of voices and early instruments: Anne Azéma, Daniel Hershey, Camila Parias, Deborah Rentz-Moore, John Taylor Ward, voices; Brian Kay, Steven Lundahl, Liza Malamut, sackbuts; Nathaniel Cox, cornetto, theorbo; Carol Lewis, viola da gamba.
Ticket information for Puer Natus Est: A Medieval Christmas:
December 2, 8pm, Hancock United Church of Christ, 1912 Massachusetts Ave., Lexington, MA
December 3, 8pm, First Parish Church of Newbury, 20 High Rd., Newbury, MA
December 4, 3pm, Gordon Chapel at Old South Church, 645 Boylston St., Boston, MA
December 9, 7:30pm, St. James by-the-sea Episcopal Church, 743 Prospect St., La Jolla, CA
December 11, 2pm and 4:30 pm, The Bradbury, 304 South Broadway at W. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA
Ticket prices vary by performance. Please check website for more information.
For more information: bostoncamerata.org or 617-262-2092
Ticket information for In Dulci Jubilo: A German Christmas:
December 18, 3pm, Union College, Schenectady, NY
December 19, 8pm, First Church in Cambridge, 11 Garden St, Cambridge, MA
Ticket prices vary by performance. Please check website for more information.
For more information: bostoncamerata.org or 617-262-2092
About The Boston Camerata:
The Boston Camerata ranks among the world’s oldest and most eminent early music ensembles. Founded in 1954, Camerata has been under the direction of French-born singer and scholar Anne Azéma since 2008.
Camerata’s musical performances are well known for their blending of spontaneity and emotional commitment with careful research and scholarship. With its distinguished roster of singers and specialists in early instruments, Camerata produces an annual concert series for audiences in the Greater Boston area. The Boston Camerata tours regularly in the US and around the world, last appearing in Paris at the Theatre de la Ville, in Treviso, Italy, as well as in Sao Paolo, Brazil, at the Alcântara Festival, and Strasbourg, France, at the Voix et Routes Romanes Festival.
The Camerata’s many recordings (Grand Prix du Disque, 1989) as well as its numerous media appearances (2 prizes at FIFA Montréal, 2014, 1 prize at the 2014 Massachusetts Film Festival) and its educational projects including residencies at the Longy School of Music and MIT have brought its work to audiences in every continent.
“clarity…zest…excitement” – The Boston Globe
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