Capella Romana Performs

Event time: 
Saturday, April 14, 2007 - 4:00pm
Event description: 

Performed at Christ Church Episcopal,  New Haven 

No admission charge; no tickets required


Cappella Romana, the noted Seattle-based vocal chamber ensemble directed by Alexander Lingas, will present a program entitled Byzantium Meets the Renaissance in New Haven as part of its east coast tour. The first part of the program will feature ecstatic selections of Byzantine chant and early experiments in polyphony by Manuel Chrysaphes (fl. 1440-63), one of the last cantors at the cathedral of Hagia Sophia who spent time in Crete at the fall of Constantinople, and by John Plousiadenos (1429?-1500), a Cretan hymnographer and composer who was present at the Council of Florence/Ferrara that aimed to unite the Latin and Greek Churches.

 

The second half of the program will feature anonymous polyphony from the Byzantine rite in Cretan style, and works of Latin Renaissance polyphony by Franghiskos Leontarides (1518?-1572?), a colleague of Willaert, Lassus, and de Rore who worked in two of the most important musical churches of the time, San Marco in Venice and the Munich court chapel.

Cappella Romana, founded in 1991, is known for combining passion with scholarship in its exploration of the musical traditions of the Christian East and West, and places special emphasis on early and contemporary music. Their singing has been described as “seamless, hypnotic pleasure” with performances offering “an excellent demonstration of the breadth and depth of the kind of music set to the Orthodox liturgy, most of which is still barely known in the West.”

The New Haven concert is presented by Yale Institute of Sacred Music with support from the Hellenic Studies Program at Yale.