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EPSG:4326

Boston Symphony Orchestra Presents: Boston Symphony Chamber Players

New England Conservatory

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.

The World of Johannes Okeghem

First Church in Cambridge

Blue Heron’s exploration of the Italian madrigal continues with a new program featuring settings of dramatic scenes by Torquato Tasso, with music by the great Giaches de Wert & others.

Tasso & Wert

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

In this third concert in a series exploring complex social issues, frequent guest Giancarlo Guerrero leads American composer Julia Wolfe’s BSO co-commissioned Her Story, featuring the Lorelei Ensemble women’s vocal group. Originally commissioned to commemorate the centenary of women’s right to vote in the U.S., the piece broadly speaks of the continuing struggle for women’s rights. The three movements of Polish composer Henryk Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs movingly contemplates the anguish of the separation of a mother from her child.

Giancarlo Guerrero conducts Górecki and Wolfe with Aleksandra Kurzak, soprano and Lorelei Ensemble

Boston Symphony Hall

One of Blue Heron’s most beloved programs, presented for the first time since 2018. Music for Christmas and New Year’s by Guillaume Du Fay, Nicolas Grenon, Johannes Ciconia, Johannes Regis, Jacob Obrecht, Antoine Brumel, Josquin Desprez, Adrian Willaert, and others. Featuring a nave lit by candles, according to Blue Heron tradition.

Christmas in 15th-Century France & Burgundy

Regis’s Mass based on the song L’homme armé is one of the very first in a series of L’homme armé works stretching across musical generations – and the only one whose origins are clearly understood. Written for the celebration of the feast of St. Michael at Cambrai Cathedral in 1462, the Mass is a tour de force setting multiple plainchant cantus firmi and featuring Regis’s brilliant and unique sense of sonority.

The Armed Archangel: Johannes Regis, Missa L’homme armé

A new program featuring the head-spinningly complex music of the generation after Machaut – stories of mythological characters and deities set to jazzy, intoxicating polyphony.

A more subtle art: the late 14th-century Ars subtilior

Two actors join Blue Heron’s singers for a revised version of a dramatic program last performed in 2012: sacred polyphony setting texts from the Song of Songs, Spanish love songs, and poetry in Spanish and Hebrew.

Sophie Michaux

Alto

Events

Upcoming events

20 - 21 Dec, 2024

Christmas in 15th-Century France & Burgundy · Blue Heron

Feb 1, 2025

The Armed Archangel: Johannes Regis, Missa L’homme armé · Blue Heron

Mar 1, 2025

A more subtle art: the late 14th-century Ars subtilior · Blue Heron

Apr 5, 2025

Song of Songs / Songs of love · Blue Heron

Past events

Nov 17, 2024

Boston Symphony Orchestra Presents: Boston Symphony Chamber Players · New England Conservatory

Apr 13, 2024

The World of Johannes Okeghem · Blue Heron

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