The Voices of Music ensemble was created for the performance of both Renaissance and Baroque music, drawing upon the many and varied sources for historical performance practice. Performances are one on a part, with an emphasis on combining both instrumental and vocal styles of interpretation and ornamentation. It is a non-profit 501-C organization and is affiliated with the San Francisco Early Music Society, with whom they share both interests and performers. Next month they begin their fourth concert season, which will include two further performances in February and March. In addition to arranging these concerts, Voices of Music sponsors a Young Artist Program and the East Bay Junior Recorder Society.
This first concert of the season in San Francisco will take place on November 13 at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church at 1111 O’Farrell Street, which, as I observed yesterday, offers highly conducive acoustics for the ensemble’s chosen repertoire. The title of the concert is Stylus Phantasticus, an appellation taken from the writings of the Baroque theorist Athanasius Kircher to describe the “most liberated form of composition, free from any of the constraints of text or predetermined harmony, to display genius.” The program will consist of virtuoso violin music from seventeenth-century Italy and Germany, providing a display of inventive, elaborate, extravagant, ever-surprising, and quirky (not to mention hyperbolic) violin virtuosity. The Italian half of the program will feature the composers Giovanni Battista Fontana, Biagio Marini, Tarquinio Merula, and Marco Uccellini. This Italian influence traversed the Alps to inspire German composers such as Dietrich Buxtehude, Samuel Scheidt, and Johann Hermann Schein.
The string performers at this concert will be Lisa Grodin, Katherine Kyme, Carla Moore, and William Skeen. They will be supported by a continuo consisting of Hanneke van Proosdij on harpsichord and Dominic Schaner and David Tayler on theorbo. (Tayler and van Proosdij also serve as Directors of Voices of Music.)
Further information can be found at the Voices of Music Web site. A brochure is also available in PDF for downloading. There is a Web page for all three concerts in the series, and tickets may be purchased through a secure Web page maintained by Tix. Single tickets are $30 each with a variety of opportunities for a $5 discount summarized at the Tix site. A subscription for the entire season costs $80 with corresponding opportunities for a $15 discount.
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