Past Seasons
2021-2022
Aaron Sheehan: Ornamentation in Handel’s Vocal Music
Peter Sykes (Boston), Improvisation and Freedom in Keyboard Practice, 17th-18th c.
2019-2020
Donald Grieg (Orlando Consort): Performing the Music of Guillaume de Machaut
David Schulenberg (Wagner College): “Performing Bach’s Adagios:
Understanding, Singing, and Playing Bach’s Written-Out Embellishments
Joshua Rifkin, Daniel Melamed, Ellen Exner: Performing Bach’s St John Passion
Crawford Young: Performing the Renaissance Fakebook
Robert Crowe: Perfecting Nature: Creating a Solo recitativo ed aria in Late Baroque Style
Sarah Freiberg: Performing Bach’s Cello Suites
Vivian Montgomery and Janet Youngdahl: Barbara Strozzi at 400: Sacred Works From a Soul Ablaze
Donald Grieg (Orlando Consort): Performing the 15th-Century Chanson
2018-2019
International Conference: Atlantic Crossings: Music from 1492 Through the Long 18th Century
Brad Michel: Recording Early Music
Ralph Maier (Mt Royal University and Conservatory) “The Vihuela in Twenty Songs”
Gian Paolo Fagotto, tenor (Il Terzo Suono, Italy) & David Dolata, theorbo (Il Furioso / Florida International University)
“Early 17th-Century Italian Monody and its Origins: A Practical Guide for Performers
Anne Azéma (Director, Boston Camerata)
“Music and Le Roman de Fauvel: Fable, Morality, and Political Satire, circa 1310”
2017-2018
International Conference,“Thirty Years of War: Henrich Schütz and Music in Protestant Germany,”
Victor Coelho, Joshua Rifkin & Bettina Varwig, organizers
David Schulenberg (Juilliard School / Wagner College)
Cadenzas and Embellishments in 18th-Century European Music
Joshua Rifkin (Boston University / The Bach Ensemble): Singing and Playing Bach
Residency of Donald Greig (Orlando Consort)
Brad Michel: Recording Early Music
2016-2017
Anne Azéma (Boston Camerata) & Shira Kammen, Paths to Performance in Medieval Song
Catherine Gordon (Providence College), 17th-18th-Century French Song: Rhetoric and Performance
Catherine Liddell (Boston), Moving the Souls of Listeners: Accompanying Monody
Andreas Scholl: Residency, concerts, masterclasses
2015-2016
November 4-7
Cappella Pratensis (Leuven), Singing Clemens non Papa
International Conference: Clemens non Papa: Towards a Polycentric Model for Renaissance Music
February 18-19
Peter Sykes (Boston), Fantasy and Improvisation: Freedom in Keyboard Practice, 17th-18th c.
April 13-14
Crawford Young (Basel), Improvisation and Interpretation from Machaut to 1500
2014-2015
October 14
Anne Smith (Schola Cantorum, Basel)
October 31-November 2
Blue Heron, Renaissance Polyphony 101
February 24-25
Anne Azéma & Shira Kammen, Paths to Performance in Medieval Song
April 13-16
Hopkinson Smith (Basel), Hearing Dowland and Bach
2013-2014
October 16, 2014
Blue Heron (Scott Metcalfe, director), Music for Canterbury Cathedral, c. 1540
performance practice for early 16C English sacred polyphony: pitch, voice types and numbers, clefs, etc.
October 24, 2014
Guy Fishman (principal cellist, Handel & Haydn Society),
Shake It: 500 Years of Vibrato in String Playing
November 14, 2014
Clemens non Papa: a Study Day on His Influence and Reception
Presented by the Alamire Foundation and CEMS
December 6, 2014
“Milton’s Sweet Echo” – Music by Henry Lawes, written for Milton’s Comus (1634). Rob Crowe (male soprano) and Victor Coelho (theorbo).
February 1 – February 7, 2014
Andrew Parrott in Residence, Featuring a service with Marsh Chapel Choir, a seminar on Monteverdi’s Vespers, lectures, and a mini-course on Monteverdi’s Orfeo.
February 5, 2014
Master Class with Emily Van Evera
February 14, 2014
Blue Heron (Scott Metcalfe, director): Un petrarchino cantato: Madrigal Settings of Poetry by Petrarch
February 16 – February 18, 2014
Scott Metcalfe, Jason McStoots, Dennis Costa, Victor Coelho. Mini-Course:
16th-Century Italian Madrigals
February 21, 2014
Pedro Memelsdorff (Schola Cantorum Basel) Ta fin est mon commencement: Composing in Italy in the Late Fourteenth Century
February 28, 2014
Robert Crowe, soprano and Victor Coelho, lute“Tears and Darkness”: Songs and Solos by John Dowland (1563-1626)
April 3, 2014
Aaron Sheehan: Workshop and Master Class: Songs of Henry Purcell
April 12 – April 14, 2014
Benjamin Bagby, Mini-Course: 12th-Century Aquitanian Polyphony
2012-2013
October 9, 2012
Basil Considine: “Re-Attributing London-Royal College of Music MS1070
New Technologies and Insights”
October 10, 2012
Scott Metcalfe and Blue Heron: Lecture-Demonstration: “Music in 16th-Century England: the Peterhouse Partbooks (c.1540)”
October 11, 2012
Blue Heron (Scott Metcalfe, director): “Nicholas Ludford: Missa Inclina cor meum and music from the Peterhouse Partbooks (c.1540)”
November 6 and 8, 2012
Anne Azéma: Lecture-Demonstration: “Jouissance vous donneray: French poetry and music (1200-1650)”
November 28, 2012
Lecture: “Performing Handel’s Messiah”
Martin Pearlman
December 11, 2012
Lecture: “Devilry and Drink: The Virtuoso Thomas Baltzar (1631?-1663)”
Patrick Wood Uribe
January 29, 2013
Lecture: “Counterpoint and Conjecture: Imagining a Lost Motet”
Joshua Rifkin
January 30, 2013
Concert: “Napoleon’s Castrato: A tribute to Girolamo Crescentini”
Robert Crowe, male soprano
with Mary Gerbi, Victor Coelho, Robert Crowe & Peter Sykes
March 1, 2013
Concert: “Divine songs: Connections and exchanges between secular song and music, featuring the music of Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1420-1497)”
Blue Heron (Scott Metcalfe, director)
808 Commonwealth Avenue, 808 Gallery, 8pm
These events are part of the conference “Voice and Voicelessness in Medieval Europe,” directed by Professor Irit Kleiman of the Department of Romance Languages.
March 3-5, 2013
Mini-Course: “Performing 15th-Century Songs From Original Notation”
with Scott Metcalfe, Aaron Sheehan, Sean Gallagher, Victor Coelho, Keith Polk & Martin Near
April 9-11, 2013
Residency of Il Furioso (Victor Coelho and David Dolata, directors) with Aldo Abreu
April 9, 2013
Lecture: “Editing the Music of Bellerofonte Castaldi, 1581-1649”
David Dolata & Victor Coelho
April 10, 2013
Lecture: “Historical Temperaments on Fretted Instruments”
David Dolata
April 11, 2013
Concert: Virtuoso Music of 17th-Century Italy
Il Furioso with Aldo Abreu
April 13-15, 2013
Mini-Course: “The Medieval Singer’s Art: An Introduction to Liturgical Chant and Vernacular and Latin Song (9th-13th Centuries)”
with Benjamin Bagby and Katarina Livljanić
April 14, 2013
Lecture: “The Silence of Medieval Singers”
Benjamin Bagby and Katarina Livljanić
