Festival Closing Concert - Songs of Light & Devotion - Life, Death & the Passion of 17th Century Italian Music
Date
Tuesday 13th January, 6.00PM
Venue
St Patrick's Cathedral, 3 Lyons St South, Ballarat 3350
Duration
60 minutes
Take a deep-dive with ensemble e21 into the rich, evocative music of 17th century Italian composers with Claudio Monteverdi, Luigi Rossi, Giovanni Rigatti and Domenico Mazzocchi. This concert offers a glimpse into the richness of the Italian baroque, the beauty of its music brought to life with instruments and voices. The texts of this music, so important to composers of the time, sought to move listeners with their highly affective poetry, whether through exploring the spiritual reflections of Claudio Monteverdi’s late sacred music, the desperate pangs of the mortal life and the longing for heavenly release in the oratorios of Luigi Rossi, or the ecstatic beauty of Rigatti’s psalm settings. This program will bring together many fine musicians, including Kate Macfarlane, Stella Horvath, Samantha Anderson-Mayes, Timothy Reynolds, Joshua Morton-Galea, Lizzy Welch, Stephanie Eldridge, Linda Kent, Laura Vaughan, Hannah Lane and John Weretka, under the direction of singer-director Stephen Grant.
Artists
e21 – Vocal Ensemble
Stephen Grant – Bass + Director
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Stephen Grant was born in Montreal, Canada. He is a singer, teacher and conductor, and is the director of the vocal ensemble e21. His professional career began in Europe, where he established working relationships with some of Europe's best-known early music ensembles — Sequentia, the Ferrara Ensemble and Ensemble Organum de Paris, with whom he performed and recorded over 30 CD recordings (for BMG, deutsche harmonia mundi, Harmonia Mundi France, Wergo & Arcana). He has also premiered a number of works for voice and chamber ensemble premieres of contemporary works by Saariaho (Paris), Fritsch (Bonn), Staub (Göteborg & Saarbrücken) and Thomson (Hobart). He is the Head of Voice at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne.
Stephanie Eldridge – Baroque violin
Lizzy Welch – Baroque violin
Linda Kent – Harpsichord
John Weretka – Organ
Laura Vaughan – Viola da gamba + Lirone
Hannah Lane – Baroque triple harp
