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College's Early Music Singers/Collegium Musicum to perform tonight

By David Gonnerman '90
November 11, 2005

The St. Olaf Early Music Singers/Collegium Musicum will perform a concert, "From Power to Purcell: 300 Years of English Music," Friday at 7:30 p.m. in Urness Recital Hall. The ensembles are led by St. Olaf Professor of Music History Gerald Hoekstra. The event is free and open to the public.

The performance will feature music from the Chapel Royal and English churches of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, and instrumental music from the Tudor and Stuart periods. The earliest piece will be a Sanctus by Leonel Power from the Old Hall Manuscript, performed by the Early Music Singers.

Other vocal music on the program will include the Magnificat 'Regale' of Robert Fayrfax, composer to English King Henry VIII, and motets by Walter Lambe, John Taverner and Thomas Tallis. This year celebrates the 500th anniversary of the birth of Tallis, who served in the Chapel Royal under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

From the 17th century the singers will sing Orlando Gibbons' wonderful verse anthem, "This is the Record of John."

The instrumental ensembles will perform a set of lively dances from Anthony Holborne's collection of "Pavans, Galliards, Almains and other Short Aeirs for viols, violins, or other Musical Wind Instruments" (1599), as well as fantasias by John Coperario, John Okeover and Henry Purcell. Singers and instrumentalists will combine forces for some songs by Weelkes and Dowland.

The Early Music Singers is an ensemble of 16 select singers who devote their efforts to performing early historical choral music. The Collegium Musicum consists of several small ensembles that perform on instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods, such as viols, recorders, cornetts, dulcian and sackbuts.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.