Singer

With the completion of its project Ockeghem@600 in March 2023, Blue Heron is very likely the only ensemble in the world to have sung every piece of music written by the great Johannes Okeghem (c. 1420-1497). Building on this unique expertise, we present a selection of the master’s very best in the context of works by his contemporaries & colleagues.

EPSG:4326

The World of Johannes Okeghem

First Church in Cambridge

Musical portraits of popes & nobles, lovers & spouses, patrons & friends, & theatrical personalities including a cocky cook & a desperately self-absorbed lover. Music by Ciconia, Du Fay, Busnoys, Isaac & others.

Renaissance Portraits

Don’t miss this concert program the Boston Globe calls “stellar” and the Boston Classical Review has dubbed “a hauntingly beautiful and uplifting occasion fit for the holidays.”

Our program offers a selection of music for the Christmas season—plainchant, carols, and polyphonic antiphons and settings of the Mass—that might have been heard in England in the 1440s, when the most modern of the works on the program were composed. The carols, drawn from several manuscripts, are written in a robust popular style with graceful melody and simple harmonies, while the polyphony dazzles with complex cross-rhythms, dashing melodies, and clangorous harmonies, all in celebration of one of the most glorious seasons of the Christian year.

Christmas in Medieval England

Songs about love & freedom, nightingales & other musical birds from Le Rossignol musical (Antwerp, 1597), by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Claude Le Jeune, Andreas Pevernage, Cipriano De Rore & others – a program premiered at Antwerp’s Laus Polyphoniae festival in August 2023.

Le Rossignol Musical

Bernard Labadie, one of today’s most prominent Baroque-era interpreters, leads a particularly regal all-Handel program with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the outstanding La Chapelle de Québec with soloists. Handel’s quintessential coronation anthems, composed for King George II, are to this day the standard-bearers of this celebratory tradition. His most-popular Music for the Royal Fireworks distills the pride of a nation into orchestral form, while Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne utilizes the featured singers’ appropriately majestic voices to uplift and delight.

Sumner Thompson

Baritone

Events

Apr 13, 2024

The World of Johannes Okeghem · Blue Heron

Jan 20, 2024

Renaissance Portraits · Blue Heron

15 - 16 Dec, 2023

Christmas in Medieval England · Blue Heron

Oct 14, 2023

Le Rossignol Musical · Blue Heron

Apr 13, 2023

Handel’s Royal Fireworks · Orchestra of St. Luke’s

Future and recently performed repertoire

Singer in Coronation Anthems by Handel

Orchestra of St. Luke’s

Singer in Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne by Handel

Orchestra of St. Luke’s

Singer in Music for the Royal Fireworks by Handel

Orchestra of St. Luke’s

About

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