Schola Cantorum: Venetian Vespers

Yale University professor emeritus Simon Carrington will return to conduct the Yale Schola Cantorum in a performance entitled Venetian Vespers. The program features 17th century works by Legrenzi and Rosenmüller

 

Under Carrington’s direction, Schola Cantorum will premiere works of early sacred music that have never been performed for contemporary audiences, with new editions prepared especially for the Institute of Sacred Music by Brian Clark.

 

The concert is designed to showcase two composers who developed Renaissance polyphony in very subtly different ways: Giovanni Legrenzi (1626–1690) and Johann Rosenmüller (1619–1684), both choirmasters at San Marco in Venice. The program is built around the evening service of Vespers, with an opening “call to prayer” followed by a prescribed sequence of psalms that differ depending on the feast being celebrated, and which are traditionally preceded and followed by antiphons. The service finishes with a seasonally appropriate hymn and a Magnificat setting. 

 

Yale Schola Cantorum, founded in 2003 by Simon Carrington, is a 24-voice chamber choir that sings in concerts and choral services. Supported by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music with the School of Music, and open by audition to all Yale students, it specializes in music from before 1750 and the last hundred years.