CHICAGO (August 25, 2006) - This fall the Newberry Consort celebrates its 20th anniversary season, and the artists will continue to showcase early music in innovative and historically informed concerts.
The season's first and last concerts will explore the role of music in courtly contexts. Harmonies of the Hemispheres: Devotions and Dreams of Spain and Mexico will begin the season with September performances that coincide with Newberry's fall exhibit titled The Aztecs and the Making of Colonial Mexico.
Like the exhibit, the concerts will show the interaction between the cultures of the Spaniards and the indigenous people. The Consort will perform songs and hymns from Colonial Mexico in Latin, Spanish and indigenous languages. Although mostly Spaniards composed these pieces, the music still differs from the works created in Spain during the same period.
The Consort will present some of the music composed in Spain to give context to the listener, said Mary Springfels, the Consort's artistic director. Religious music in Mexico, for example, was more conservative than in Spain, Springfels explained. Dance music, on the other hand, was more "up-to-date" in Mexico. While religious music represented a united Catholic ideal in the New Spain, the dance music also contributed to church goals.
"It was used as a ploy to intrigue and draw native peoples to the church," Springfels said. "It worked pretty well."
The Newberry Consort's season will end in May with performances of Imperial Entertainments: Music for the Holy Roman Emperors. Like the music of Colonial Mexico, many of the pieces featured in Imperial Entertainments have not been previously heard by any audiences. These pieces were composed for, and some composed by, three generations of Habsburg emperors. This active patronage created an atmosphere for musical expression in their Austro-Hungarian empire. Music functioned as an "imperial tool" here as well, Springfels said.
The second program of the season, Time Stands Still: Reflections of Elizabethan England explores the concepts of time, mutability, and caprice in Elizabethan music. Performances are November 9-12. It will debut in Milwaukee in October as the first concert of the season for the Wisconsin presenter Early Music Now, also celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
In February, A Portrait of Renaissance Brughes, a concert of music that could have been heard in this bustling Burgundian port city in the 15th century, reveals the beat to which modern venture capitalism was invented. The Consort performed this concert last year in New York to rave reviews as an accompaniment to an exhibit of Franco-Flemish art at the Frick Collection.
The Newberry Consort will also present a special holiday party, Playford's Further Delight in December. This bawdy dance benefit will get the holiday spirit going with an afternoon of English country dancing. Gene Murrow, renowned expert in English country dance, will MC. Light refreshments will be served.
Informative, free pre-concert lectures at 7:00 pm precede the performances at the Newberry Library and University of Chicago venues. Concerts that used to begin at 8:00 pm will start at 7:30 pm this season.
THE NEWBERRY CONSORT'S 2006-07 SCHEDULE:
Harmonies of the Hemispheres: Devotions & Dreams of Spain & Mexico
Thursday, September 28, 7:30 pm
Concert, Newberry Library
Friday, September 29, 2:00 pm
Short Concert, Mexican Fine Arts Center
Saturday, September 30, 7:30 pm
Concert, Fulton Hall, Hyde Park
Sunday, October 1, 3:00 pm
Concert, Lutkin Hall, Evanston
Time Stands Still: Reflections of Elizabethan England
Thursday, November 9, 3:00 pm
Open rehearsal, Newberry Library
Friday, November 10, 7:30 pm
Concert, Newberry Library
Saturday, November 11, 7:30 pm
Concert, Fulton Hall, Hyde Park
Sunday, November 12, 3:00 pm
Concert, Lutkin Hall, Evanston
Playford's Further Delight: A Dance Redux for the Newberry Consort
Sunday, December 3, 2:30 pm
Newberry Library
A Portrait of Renaissance Brughes
Thursday, February 8, 3:00 pm
Open rehearsal, Newberry Library
Friday, February 9, 7:30 pm
Concert, Newberry Library
Saturday, February 10, 7:30 pm
Concert, Fulton Hall, Hyde Park
Sunday, February 11, 3:00 pm
Concert, Lutkin Hall, Evanston
Imperial Entertainments: Music for the Holy Roman Emperors
Thursday, May 3, 3:00 pm
Open rehearsal, Newberry Library
Friday, May 4, 7:30 pm
Concert, Newberry Library
Saturday, May 5, 7:30 pm
Concert, Fulton Hall, Hyde Park
Sunday, May 6, 3:00 pm
Concert, Lutkin Hall, Evanston
ABOUT THE NEWBERRY CONSORT
The Newberry Consort began as part of the Early Music from the Newberry series, which was founded by gambist and current director Mary Springfels in 1982. The Newberry Consort also includes violinist David Douglass and countertenor Drew Minter, who have been performing with Springfels for 18 years. Soprano Ellen Hargis joined the Consort in 2002. The Newberry Consort performs early music, which refers to pieces usually composed in Western Europe as early as the 9th century up to the Baroque period around 1750. To perform these pieces, the Newberry Consort players use early instruments to create a sound that is different from classical music.
You may reach the Newberry Consort by calling (312) 255-3610 or by e-mailing consort@newberry.org . To order tickets, please call (312) 255-3700.
ABOUT THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY
The Newberry Library is an independent library open to the public for research and reference in the humanities. One of the largest independent research libraries in the United States, the Newberry holds an extraordinary collection of more than 1.5 million books, 5 million manuscript pages and 300 thousand historic maps. As one of the world's leading repositories of a broad range of books and manuscripts relating to the civilizations of western Europe and the Americas, the Library's mission is to acquire and preserve research collections of such materials, and to provide for and promote their effective use by a diverse community of users.