October 10th, 2016: Fun With Chant Notation Software
Our dear colleague, conductor, church musician and fellow polyphonist Rick Wheeler saved the day today by introducing Meinrad fonts, an extremely easy and free way to notate chant using neumes and four-line staves on the computer. No more smudgy pencil scribble scores for us! Here is a step-by-step way to use it for yourself:
STEP 1: Visit this website link to download the fonts: http://www.saintmeinrad.edu/the-monastery/liturgical-music/downloads/
Click on "Fonts and Copyright" and read everything carefully, including the copyright terms. Then, select the font according to your chosen word editor program.
STEP 1: Visit this website link to download the fonts: http://www.saintmeinrad.edu/the-monastery/liturgical-music/downloads/
Click on "Fonts and Copyright" and read everything carefully, including the copyright terms. Then, select the font according to your chosen word editor program.
STEP 2: Open your control panel and install the font (fonts are catalogued under "appearance" in Windows computers). You can click on the font files in the downloaded zip folder, and they will open to show an install window.
STEP 3: Open a Word or text document and select the Meinrad font, and start playing with the notation! It's delightfully very similar in feel to the typesetting used in printing manuscripts during the Renaissance...except you'll have to add in the charming spaces between the notes yourself!
September 9th, 2016: John Dowland's First Booke
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On Friday, September 9th, 2016, DEMC appeared on the Guest Artist Series for Metropolitan State University of Denver's music department, performing in its entirety John Dowland's First Booke of Songes or Ayres of four parts. The performance featured four singers: Cynthia Henning, Kathleen Schmidt, Daniel Hutchings, and Adam Ewing, joined by Peter Schimpf on lute, with special guests: the viol consort STRING (Ann Marie Morgan, Sandra Miller, and Sarah Biber). The concert was of Dr. Schimpf's unique design, incorporating a variety of aural color combinations and ensemble mixing and matching to showcase the wonderful versatility of the lute song medium.
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August 28th, 2016: "Beyond Baroque" at the Sounds of Lyons Music Festival
Singing and playing to the Lyons cliffs!
Musicians from the DEMC were invited to perform as part of the "Beyond Baroque" feature of the Sounds of Lyons Music Festival in Lyons, Colorado. Joined by Sounds of Lyons Director and violinist MinTze Wu, with Peter Schimpf on Baroque guitar, theorbo, and lute, Sarah Biber on Baroque cello and viola da gamba, and mezzo-soprano Kathleen Schmidt, the Consort performed works by Henry Purcell, Alessandro Stradella, Heinrich Franz von Biber, Biagio Marini, John Dowland, and Heinrich Schuetz, among others. The performance took place on a gorgeous late summer Sunday afternoon, susrrounded by the red cliffs of Lyons, on the banks of the St. Vrain creek. It was a bluebird Colorado day!
April 23rd, 2016: Cervantes Requiem
Final rehearsal for the Romero Requiem
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The Denver Early Music Consort marked the 400th anniversary of the deaths of two monumental literary figures, Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare, by performing a Requiem mass by Belgian-born Spanish composer Mateo Romero, a Renaissance contemporary of the writers. Romero's "Missa pro defunctis" is scored for two choirs and continuo, which was performed on theorbo by Dr. Peter Schimpf. The choristers for this performance were Abigail Chapman, Cynthia Henning, Ann Marie Morgan, Claudia Folk Wright, Bob Reynolds, Brock Erickson, Joe Massman, and Alan Polacek. The concert took place at Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church in downtown Denver, and also included a beautiful two-part motet, "En las riberas" by Pedro Ruimonte, and "Hanacpachap cussicuinin", one of the earliest known examples of indigenous South American text set to European Renaissance polyphony.
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January 15th, 2016: Pop-Up Polyphony
The Denver Early Music Consort's very first "Pop-Up Polyphony" event was a successful experiment in exploring new, unconventional aural spaces to create early-music art! Artistic Director Kathleen Schmidt was joined by soprano Abigail Chapman, tenor Bob Reynolds. and bass Kenny Donoghue in an informal tour of some of the most famous pieces of 4-part Renaissance polyphony ever written. Michael Warren Contemporary gallery graciously hosted the event, inviting the sounds of Western Art's Golden Age into the heart of Denver's Arts District on Santa Fe. The program was designed to highlight only the landscape of sound created by polyphonic counterpoint - this event contained no program booklet, no composer bios, no formal intermission - none of the trappings of a typical early music concert! A music stand stood near the door of the gallery, providing the gallery visitors with copies of the performers' music, a "set list" off of which listeners could call out requests, and an email sign-up sheet.
Between 50-60 people packed into the space near the front of the gallery, sometimes sitting and listening, sometimes wandering around the exhibits and letting the sounds of intricate choral counterpoint wash over them. Numerous audience requests were made from the "set list", and when the invitation was extended from the stage to get up and join in the singing, the quartet grew to a full choir of 10-12 people! Burning historical questions were answered, lots of jokes were traded between audience and performers, and everyone enjoyed a very special festive Third Friday in the Arts District. We can't wait to pop up with more gorgeous polyphony all over town in the near future!
Between 50-60 people packed into the space near the front of the gallery, sometimes sitting and listening, sometimes wandering around the exhibits and letting the sounds of intricate choral counterpoint wash over them. Numerous audience requests were made from the "set list", and when the invitation was extended from the stage to get up and join in the singing, the quartet grew to a full choir of 10-12 people! Burning historical questions were answered, lots of jokes were traded between audience and performers, and everyone enjoyed a very special festive Third Friday in the Arts District. We can't wait to pop up with more gorgeous polyphony all over town in the near future!
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