UTOPIA EARLY MUSIC BEGINS 2017-2018 SEASON IN THE RENAISSANCE

Utopia Early Music presents Requiem: Renaissance Music of Life and Loss

 

SALT LAKE CITY, UT – Utopia and the newly formed Utopia Chamber Singers begin the 2017-2018 season with a performance of Johannes Ockeghem’s Requiem, the earliest polyphonic setting of the mass for the dead, alongside works by his students and contemporaries. Voices weave a tapestry of shifting sounds in works that pay tribute to lost loved ones alongside secular and instrumental pieces that offer a lighter counterpoint to this meditative music. Performances will take place Saturday, October 28, 8:00 PM and Sunday, October 29, 5:00 PM at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark (Episcopal) 231 E 100 S, Salt Lake City. Admission is pay as able (suggested $15 general/$12 seniors/$10 students). Prof. Jane Hatter from the University of Utah will offer a special pre-concert lecture on Ockeghem and his milieu before the October 29 concert at 4:15 PM. This concert is made possible by a generous grant from the Salt Lake City Arts Council.

Works on the program represent the very beginning of the musical Renaissance, which started in what is now France and the Low Countries in the late fifteenth century before spreading to the rest of Europe. For this concert, Emily Nelson (soprano), Nate Pence (countertenor), Christopher LeCluyse (tenor), Logan Bradford (tenor), Brett Taylor (baritone), and Kevin Smith (bass) join Lisa Chaufty (recorder) and Loren Carle (organ). Utopia’s season continues with An English Country Christmas (December 16 & 17), The Siren and the Nightingale: Music of Medieval France (February 3 &4), and Liaisons Charmantes: French and English Baroque (April 9 on the Westminster College Concert Series). More information is available at www.utopiaearlymusic.org.

 

Now in its ninth season and going strong, Utopia Early Music breathes life into the Salt Lake City music scene with its historically informed performances of medieval, renaissance, and baroque music. The group has been praised for its “clear aesthetic of intimacy, nuance and transparency” (15 Bytes). Ed Reichel of Reichel Recommends comments, “Utopia has found a way to make early music fun.”

 

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