Music groups combine in unique baroque performance

Early music groups combine for unique baroque performance

The Tudor Consort with Baroque Voices and Acadamie Sancta Mariae present

Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Bonum confiteri est Domino

Henry Purcell: I will give thanks

Wellington's three specialist early music groups are collaborating for the first time to bring Wellington audiences a feast of baroque music at a standard rarely heard outside of international festivals.

The Tudor Consort ("Wellington's superb chamber choir" - The Dominion Post) collaborates with early music solists Baroque Voices and specialist baroque instrumental group Acadamie Sancta Mariae in this unique one-off performance of large scale psalm settings by the two leading composers of the early baroque.

The French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1645-1704) and the English composer Henry Purcell (1659-1695) were the two most influential composers of the early baroque. This performance features two rare works - a large scale festal psalm setting by Charpentier and a virtuosic verse anthem setting by Purcell - that have never been heard before in New Zealand.

"These three critically acclaimed groups are combining for the first time to present repertoire that cannot be managed by any one operating independently. The programme features large scale festal baroque works that normally are not heard in Wellington because of the demands on choir, instrumentalists and solists. This is a remarkable opportunity for Wellington audiences to enjoy a performance of early music performed by specialist early musicians - a feast of the sort normally reserved for international performances at a major Festival of the Arts," says The Tudor Consort director Alastair Carey.

Charpentier was the most influential French composer of the early baroque period. Baroque Voices and Acadamie Sancta Mariae have taken a leading role in New Zealand in presenting his chamber music in Wellington performances that have received continual critical acclaim. Purcell, the finest English composer of the baroque, is more familiar to Wellington audiences, thanks in no small part to The Tudor Consort's own critically acclaimed concerts of Purcell repertoire.

The Tudor Consort with Baroque Voices and Acadamie Sancta Mariae
Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Bonum confiteri est Domino
Henry Purcell: I will give thanks

8pm Saturday 27 August 2005
St Mary of the Angels, Boulcott Street
$25 / $15 / Book at Ticketek
Visit http://www.tudor-consort.org.nz

ENDS

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