Mississippi Early Music Ensemble: Past Performances

Mississippi Early Music Ensemble

Performances, 1998-2003

Winter Concert, 2002

The Mississippi Early Music Ensemble presented its annual winter concert on December 4 in the Paris-Yates Chapel on the Ole Miss campus. The program emphasized the vocal and instrumental music of the 15th-century, and also featured a Christmas cantata by J.S. Bach. Among the works presented were a surprisingly modern-sounding Gloria by Johannes Ciconia, and Guillaume Dufay's motet Nuper rosarum flores, composed for the 1436 dedication of Brunelleschi's dome at Florence's cathedral. Also included were instrumental dances and carols of the late Middle Ages, and two songs by Dufay. The program concluded with the Bach work, written for the Third Day of Christmas, 1723, featuring vocal soloists and instruments such as oboe, violin, and brass quartet.

Music of the Restoration Theatre

The Mississippi Early Music Ensemble presented its annual spring concert on May 1, 2002, in the new Paris-Yates Chapel on the Ole Miss campus. The program emphasized the vocal and instrumental music of the 17th-century English stage and chapel royal, and featured the work of Henry Purcell. Stage excerpts included two entire musical scenes from Shadwell's The Libertine, a pastoral scene (recorders, soloists and chorus) and an infernal scene (brasses, soloists and chorus); also songs from Oedipus and Timon of Athens. Also featured were an anthem by Pelham Humfrey and funeral music of Purcell. Instrumental selections included a suite of dances by Matthew Locke, played on recorders and baroque guitar.

Winter Concert, 2001

The Mississippi Early Music Ensemble presented its annual winter concert on December 3 in the new Paris-Yates Chapel on the Ole Miss campus. The program emphasized vocal and instrumental chamber music of the 17th century from Italy and other countries, including a group of dramatic scenes by Giacomo Carissimi and Giovanni Rovetta dealing with war, death, and mourning, demonstrating how the most expressive early composers portrayed in music some of the emotions many of use feel since the September 11 attacks and subsequent events. As usual, however, the program also included love songs, dance music, and songs of hope and Christmas joy. The ensemble was directed this year by Warren Steel.

Music for the Courts and Churches of Vienna

The Mississippi Early Music Ensemble presented at concert of Music for the Courts and Churches of Vienna on May 2 in the new Paris-Yates Chapel on the Ole Miss campus. The program featured the vesper psalm Beatus Vir by Claudio Monteverdi, and the Stabat Mater by Viennese court composer Antonio Caldara, with strings and brass. Also featured was music by Isaac, Senfl, Froberger, Praetorius, and medieval songs by the Minnesingers. This was the first concert to be presented in Paris-Yates Chapel, with its 26-stop mechanical action organ by Karl Wilhelm.

Anniversaries

The Mississippi Early Music Ensemble presented a holiday concert on December 4, 2000 at First Presbyterian Church. The program commemorated the 200th anniversary of the death of early American composer William Billings, and the 250th anniversary of the death of composer J.S. Bach. The program featured early American music from singing-school, church, theater, and parade ground, composed during the revolutionary and federal periods. Composers included Billings, Abraham Wood, Stephen Jenks, Samuel Holyoke, Rayner Taylor, and others. A set of traditional dance music was performed by Pontotoc County fiddler Robert E. Goodrich, accompanied on the hammered dulcimer by MEME co-director Warren Steel. The program concluded with a Christmas cantata by J.S. Bach first performed in 1724.

Music at the Turn of the Centuries

The Mississippi Early Music Ensemble presented a concert on May 1, 2000 at Bryant Hall Art Gallery, illustrating styles at the turn of the 15th-18th centuries. The beginning of a new century is a special event within the course of music history. The radical shifts in style at the outset of the 1600s and 1900s are just two prominent examples. Crossovers to new centuries during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance were also times of intense creative activity. The program included anonymous 14th-century dances, as well as music by Josquin, Isaac, Monteverdi, Brade, and Marais. Featured were several of Monteverdi's Madrigals of Love and War, including the "Lament of the Nymph" and the warlike "Gira il nemico insidioso Amore." This semester MEME was directed by Ronald F. Vernon and Laurdella Foulkes-Levy.

Holiday Concert 1999

The Mississippi Early Music ensemble presented its holiday concert of early music from Italy and Germany on December 6, 1999, beginning at 8:15 PM at First Presbyterian Church, Oxford, Mississippi. This program featured Italian madrigals of the early baroque, recorder music by Schein and Mattheson, and a Christmas concerto by Andreas Hammerschmidt.

Music of Renaissance England, 1550-1625

On Friday, April 30, 1999, at 6:30 PM in Meek Auditorium, the Mississippi Early Music ensemble presented a spring program of English music from the Renaissance, including works from the reigns of Mary Tudor, Elizabeth, and James I. The program included sacred and secular part-songs by Orlando Gibbons, madrigals by Thomas Morley and Thomas Bateson, a rarely-performed Latin motet by Thomas Tallis, lute songs by Campion, Jones and Dowland, and keyboard music by William Byrd, along with dance music for instrumental ensemble.

Music of Spain and Spanish America

The Mississippi Early Music ensemble presented two programs of Hispanic music preserved in sources in Spain and the New World. The first program was presented in a live radio broadcast of the Thacker Mountain Radio Hour on Thursday, November 19. On December 7, MEME presented its holiday concert at First Presbyterian Church, Oxford, Mississippi, beginning at 8:15 PM. This program featured Spanish chants and villancicos (carols with refrains), love songs and dance music, a lament for a Spanish prince, and a Magnificat by Tomás Luís de Victoria.

The Splendors of Versailles

In April 1998 the Mississippi Early Music Ensemble presented two concerts of French baroque music as part of the International Baroque Music Festival that took place throughout Mississippi in connection with the Splendors of Versailles exhibit at the Mississippi Arts Pavilion in Jackson.

The first concert, on April 4, featured the faculty members of MEME, together with guest artist Susan Marchant, viola da gamba, in a program of chamber instrumental and vocal music. Selections included harpsichord music by François Couperin and Elizabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, recorder music by Hotteterre and Chédeville, secular cantatas by Montéclair and Charpentier, and incidental music and songs by Charpentier for a comedy by Molière.

The second concert, on April 24, featuring the entire ensemble, included three chansons from the French Renaissance, along with works by Couperin, Clérambault, and Rameau. The featured work was Charpentier's Judicium Salomonis. This Latin oratorio, composed for the opening of Louis XIV's Parlement in 1702, recounts King Solomon's interrogation and judgment between two women who claimed to be the mother of the same child.