Four Different Concerts in Three Days – Conspirare and CHJ

Not my idea of fun, but the ideas are refreshing:

Conspirare is about to begin its new year with some very old music, and with a challenge: to deliver four unique concerts in three days. Its “Renaissance and Response” festival, held Friday through Sunday , will celebrate complex and beautiful music that’s rarely heard or sung .

 

Not satisfied to simply sing this ancient music, Craig Hella Johnson and Conspirare have enlisted lauded composer Robert Kyr for a 21st-century response. And so each of the four concerts will feature a world premiere. “We never really get to hear this music,” says Johnson, who says that the modern listener is often detached from the subtleties of Renaissance music.

 

Both Johnson and Kyr agree that this music has been misunderstood, often sounding overly subdued. “I thought, I just don’t want to have another experience where people are hearing this only as background atmosphere,” Johnson says. In the hands of two choral masters, one should expect the music of the Renaissance to come very much alive.