Blue Heron
directed by Scott Metcalfe
Friday, October 16, 2009 at 8pm
St. Paul Church in Harvard Square
Free pre-concert talk at 7pm
Tickets: $64, $49, $38, $19 – reserved seating
Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks: Sacred works by
Hugh Aston, Nicholas Ludford, Robert Fayrfax, and others
Boston’s own Blue Heron Renaissance Choir celebrates its 10th anniversary
as the opening performance of the Boston Early Music Festival’s 20th
concert season. Since its founding in 1999, Blue Heron has worked to
bring the stunning virtuosic music of England’s Peterhouse Partbooks to
light through their illuminating performances. Copied for the new
cathedral foundation of Christ Church, Canterbury, ca. 1540-41, these
books contain an extensive and mostly neglected repertoire of pre-
Reformation English polyphony,much of it of superlative quality, with two
works being presented here in their North American premieres. Don’t miss
this special program of music by Hugh Aston, Nicholas Ludford, Robert Fayrfax, and others, plus secular songs from early Tudor manuscripts.
