The holiday concert season is already in full swing, but there’s still a full calendar of festive musical events set to spread Christmas cheer throughout the Seattle area. We’ve compiled a small sampling of yuletide offerings for everyone, from grandma to your hipster cousin. Continue reading What We’re Hearing This Holiday Season: Classical Music Picks For Christmas
On Saturday, the Medieval Women’s Choir explored the life of German mystic St. Hildegard of Bingen with a program of songs and antiphons at St. James Cathedral. A “Renaissance woman” in both the literal and figurative sense, St. Hildegard established herself as an abbess, theologian, poet, composer, and healer. Continue reading The Medieval Women’s Choir Fills St. James Cathedral With Ethereal Song
Ten strong voices, using no vibrato and with a resonance and slightly nasal sound which comes from using the whole skull as resonating chamber, sang the entire Vespers in just under two hours without intermission, processing around the cathedral and singing from different locations. Continue reading Cappella Romana Fill St. James Cathedral with Devotion to Ancient Vespers
Several groups ended with improvisations, in which the group played the underneath lines and Savall took off in ever more exciting flights of musical fireworks, the first one based on the familiar Folia melody. For some of these, only Savall was using his bow, the other players plucking their viols in accompaniment. Continue reading Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI Take the Viola to New Heights
