SFEMS Presents Cappella SF In Concerts Of Josquin, Allegri, Couperin & Schutz

The San Francisco Early Music Society's 2018-19 concert season continues next month with the Bay Area's own Cappella SF. Directed by Ragnar Bohlin, Cappella SF has taken the choral world by storm in just four years, acclaimed both at home and abroad. In their debut program for SFEMS, Neither From Heaven Nor From Earth, Cappella SF will perform works spanning a period from Josquin through Allegri, Schütz and Couperin.

Concerts of Neither From Heaven Nor >From Earth will take place at 8 p.m. Friday, November 30 at First Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto; at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, December 1 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley; and at 4 p.m. Sunday, December 2 at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco. Individual tickets, $12 to $45, are available for purchase online at sfems.org.

Bohlin founded Cappella SF in San Francisco in 2014. Members of the ensemble are veterans of the leading professional choral groups of the Bay Area, including Chanticleer, Philharmonia Baroque Chorale, American Bach Soloists and the choruses of San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Opera. Its members teach, lead ensembles and appear as soloists throughout the Bay Area and beyond. For his part, Bohlin also serves as director of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, a position he has held since 2007. He received a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance for Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony.

Under Bohlin's direction, Cappella SF has released three recordings - Light of Gold: A Cappella SF Christmas, Facing West: Music of David Conte and Conrad Susa, and Timeless: Ten Centuries of Music. The group is preparing to release a fourth recording next year.

The members of Cappella SF are Jennifer Ashworth, Cheryl Cain, Michele Kennedy and Elizabeth Kimble, sopranos; Silvie Jensen, Leandra Ramm, Meghan Spyker and Susan Thampi, altos; Elliott Encarnación, Kevin Gibbs, Jonathon Hampton and Steven Ziegler, tenors; and Matthew Boehler, Clayton Moser, Chung-Wai Soong and Nick Volkert, basses. Joining the vocalists in their concerts next month are cellist Frédéric Rosselet and organist Jonathan Dimmock.

Divided into two main sections, Cappella SF's program for Neither From Heaven Nor From Earth explores sacred music from four composers. The first half of the program features compositions for Holy Week; the second half, devoted to Schütz, considers works reflecting "the humility of the composer's faith."

The program opens with Josquin des Préz's Miserere mei, Deus, likely written in 1503-4 at the court of Ferrara. It is the first known full-length setting of Psalm 51, and exemplifies the "mathematically precise and highly expressive" virtuosity of the composer. Josquin's Miserere is followed by Gregorio Allegri's, which the composer wrote for the Sistine Chapel Choir in 1638 when he was a singer there. Today it is one of the most often performed works of unaccompanied sacred music.

The first half of the program closes with François Couperin's Troisième Leçon, widely considered to be one of the pinnacles of baroque vocal music. Published in 1714 for the Abbey at Longchamp near Paris, the piece is a setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. The original vocal lines were for two solo sopranos; however, Couperin noted that "all other voice types may sing them." The women of Cappella SF will perform this work, with soloists on the verses and full chorus on the refrains.

In the second half of the program, Cappella SF performs Schütz's Musikalische Exequien, SWV 279-281, a work commissioned by Prince Heinrich II Posthumus von Reuss for his own elaborately planned funeral that occurred in 1636. The concert concludes with Schütz's Deutsches Magnificat, SWV 494, composed in 1669 three years before the composer's death at age 87. The piece was not performed during Schütz's life nor at his funeral, and did not receive its premiere until 1985 after it was recovered from obscurity at a library in Dresden.

For more information about Cappella SF's program, visit sfems.org.

Founded in 1975, SFEMS is one of the nation's leading organizations for the advancement of historically informed performance of early music. Through its concert series, publications, outreach activities, affiliate support and educational programs SFEMS encourages the development of amateurs, supports professionals, and increases public involvement and participation in early music. SFEMS is the lead presenter of the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition of early music.

Among the hundreds of ensembles and solo artists SFEMS has supported over four-plus decades are many whose national or regional debuts occurred under its auspices: Anonymous 4, Benjamin Bagby, Frans Brüggen, Concerto Palatino, Fretwork, Laurette Goldberg, Hilliard Ensemble, John Holloway, Emma Kirkby & Anthony Rooley, Wieland Kuijken, Gustav Leonhardt, PAN, Joshua Rifkin, Jordi Savall, Max Van Egmond and Vox Luminis, to name a few. FACT SHEET WHO: Cappella SF
Ragnar Bohlin, artistic director

Jennifer Ashworth, Cheryl Cain, Michele Kenned, Elizabeth Kimble, sopranos; Silvie Jensen, Leandra Ramm, Meghan Spyker, Susan Thampi, altos; Elliott Encarnación, Kevin Gibbs, Jonathon Hampton, Steven Ziegler, tenors; Matthew Boehler, Clayton Moser, Chung-Wai Soong, Nick Volkert, basses; Frédéric Rosselet, baroque cello; Jonathan Dimmock, baroque organ

PROGRAM: Neither From Heaven Nor From Earth
Miserere mei, Deus Josquin des Préz
Miserere mei, Deus Gregorio Allegri
Troisième leçon de ténèbres pour le mercredi saint François Couperin
Musikalische Exequien, SWV 279-281 Heinrich Schütz
Deutsches Magnificat, SWV 494 Heinrich Schütz

?FOR MORE INFORMATION: sfems.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.