Category: Music

This upcoming Tuesday, October 29th, you can catch me at The Ark as they hold an Artist Spotlight for Ordinary Elephant, winner of the Artist of the Year Award at the International Folk Music Awards in 2017. I have only recently discovered this folk duo, yet I’m very excited to enter into this musical space with them. From my listening on Spotify I found their music to be thoughtful and charming with the swells of an autumn chill.

The doors of The Ark open at 7:30, and the show starts at 8:00; while this event is free to the public, it will accept non-perishable food items to go towards Food Gatherers!

Cappella Pratensis’s performance of Missa Maria zart was an excellent opportunity to experience Renaissance-style polyphony – which may sound foreign to our ears – live. Despite its significant differences from the music of today, the Dutch-based ensemble deftly showed that such music can be both accessible and enjoyable.

At over an hour long, Missa Maria zart is one of the longest, most complex Mass settings (compositions putting the text of the Catholic Mass to music) known. Running throughout the entire mass is the same underlying melody, known as a cantus firmus, and the entire piece is consequently known as a cantus firmus Mass. In the case of Missa Maria Zart, the cantus firmus is a German melody called Maria zart, or “Sweet Mary.” The performer’s comments during the pre-concert lecture, as well as the program notes, helped audience members to gain a greater understanding of the music and its complexities. Additionally, the text of the entire mass, as well as the English translations, were printed in the program, which allowed listeners to follow along. The Mass’s music was an experience in itself: in the echoey acoustics of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, the resonant harmonies and interplay of the voices rung throughout the space. Despite the piece’s extraordinary length, I found myself engaged throughout its entirety.

Outside of the music, I was impressed by several other aspects of Cappella Pratensis’s performance. For one thing, it is a physical feat to sing almost continuously, without water or an intermission, for over an hour. Secondly, it was fascinating how other (non-musical) types of art were incorporated into early music making, including Cappella Pratensis’s historically informed performance. I enjoyed the opportunity to look at their partbooks, both their modern reproduction of Missa Maria zart, and their facsimiles of original chant melodies, up close. It’s crazy that the musicians of Cappella Pratensis can read four parts from the markings on the page. Called mensural notation, it looks vaguely like modern musical notation, but it’s not obvious how to read it. Also, I enjoy doing calligraphy when I have spare time, and aesthetically, the partbooks were works of art. The beauty of the lettering and flourishes around the notation are very different from modern musical notation, in which the parts exist with the primary utilitarian purpose of readability. Even their sturdy music stand, which was constructed of solid wood, featured intricate carvings on its sides.

In conclusion, I am glad to have had the opportunity to experience Jacob Obrecht’s expansive Mass setting, Missa Maria zart, in live performance.

If you would like to try something new in terms of music listening, join Cappella Pratensis, a Dutch-based early music ensemble, this Friday, October 25 at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. The performance will begin at 8 pm, with a pre-concert lecture starting at 7:15.

Missa Maria zart (Mass for Gentle Mary) is a 15th-century polyphonic, or multi-part, work composed by Jacob Obrecht. At the time it was written, the piece pushed boundaries – at 69 minutes, it is the longest known Mass ever composed. Centuries later, the piece is still beautiful to modern ears, albeit very different in sound from the “mainstream” music of today. That said, it is pieces like these that were the origins of the music we listen to today.

Tickets, which are $15 with student ID, may be purchased online at https://academyofearlymusic.org/portfolio/cappella-pratensis/ or at the door on the night of the performance.

The Saturday evening performance by Chick Corea Trilogy at Hill Auditorium featured jazz legend Chick Corea (the fourth most nominated artist in GRAMMY history) on piano, Brian Blade on drums, and Christian McBride on bass, and it left no doubts that all three musicians have more than earned their place among jazz greats.

Christian McBride shone on the bass, garnering fervent applause from the audience every time he had a solo. In fact, he appeared to steal the show; as his hands flew across the instrument’s fingerboard, audience members shook their heads in disbelief that what they were witnessing was, in fact, real. When he pulled out his bow – which wasn’t until the third piece of the evening, Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood” – the sound that rung from the stage was rich and warm, before he deftly slipped it back into its pocket and returned to playing pizzicato (plucking the strings). I, too, found myself smiling in awe each time McBride demonstrated his versatility and virtuosic skill.

While the trio performed several timeless works by the likes of Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, much of the set list comprised of arrangements by Chick Corea himself, including “La Fiesta,” “Windows,” “Spanish Song,” and what I found to be the evening’s most fascinating piece, “Scarlatti Intro Improvisation.” Performed as a lead-in to a keyboard sonata by 18^th-century baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti, it pushed the boundaries of what was expected (in introducing the pieces, Mr. Corea remarked that he “tried to invite Scarlatti out for coffee, but it didn’t work out,” much to the audience’s amusement). In the first place, a keyboard sonata from the 1700s isn’t what one usually expects to hear in a jazz concert. However, Chick Corea’s ingenious lead-in capitalized further on this challenging of norms and included him playing the piano in unconventional ways. He plucked the strings of the open grand piano, and then ran his hand across the strings, creating new and creative sounds, and the audience loved it.

After several returns to the stage at the conclusion of the show, the trio performed “Blue Monk” by Thelonious Monk as an encore, and Chick Corea engaged the audience in the music. He would play a one of the piece’s short motifs on the piano, and then point at the audience to sing it back during the piece. The brief licks increased in complexity until by the end, all we could do was laugh when Mr. Corea pointed for us to sing. It was a memorable end to an evening of unforgettable jazz – when I walked down the sidewalk from Hill Auditorium a short while later, I was still humming those little tunes from “Blue Monk” to myself.