2011 Advent Festival
The Art of Praise
Sunday, December 4, 1:45pm
The Newman College Oratory
The Advent Festival, in conjunction with the State Library of Victoria and The University of Melbourne, will host a forum and display on the Medieval Choir Book, convened by Margaret Manion. Margaret Manion has published widely on medieval manuscripts and is preparing a publication on the medieval choir book, entitled The Art of Praise. Shane Carmody, John Stinson, Elizabeth Melzer and Hugh Hudson will introduce the manuscripts, discussing their provenance, parchments, music and illuminations. The forum will include a number of live examples of the music sung by John Weretka.
At the forum’s conclusion, the manuscripts and leaves discussed will be available for inspection in the Oratory. Richly illuminated examples from the State Library of Victoria include: an eleventh-century manuscript of musical treatises by Boethius and others; a fourteenth-century French antiphonal made for the royal monastery of St Louis de Poissy; a section of a late thirteenth-century Italian antiphonal for the Christmas season; and fifteenth-century illustrated and decorated letters from an album of manuscript cuttings. From the University of Melbourne’s collections come two splendid leaves from a fourteenth-century Gradual made in Perugia; and illustrated initials from a late fifteenth-century Augustinian antiphonal made in Brescia.
For further information and enquiries, email reception@newman.unimelb.edu.au or telephone 9347 5577.
An introduction to the weekend’s events by the festival’s artistic director, Gary Ekkel
Fanfares and festive baroque music for the Venetian Lo Sposalizio del Mare ceremony. Each year the Doge of Venice and his entourage would ride in a solemn procession of vessels to the entrance of Venice’s lagoon, throwing a ring into the water as a sign of eternal fidelity and reasserting Venice’s authority as the Queen of the Seas.
The Sposalizio celebrations continue with a service of praise at the Venetian church of San Nicolò. Featuring magnificent polychoral and concertanto music by Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi and Antonio Lotti for choirs of brass, strings and voices.
The Choir of Newman College with La Compañia
Director: Gary Ekkel
As the service of the night, compline is a reflection on the day past and a preparation for sleep. Rosemary Hodgson plays delicate lute solos from sixteenth-century Italy and Spain to complement the meditative plainchant.
Lute: Rosemary Hodgson
Chant: Canticum feminarum
Cantor: Helen Thomson
Organ: David Macfarlane
Schola Cantorum of Melbourne
directed by John Weretka
In honour of the Spanish saint Australia’s leading Renaissance ensemble, Ensemble Gombert, performs a Mass by Victoria, whose four-hundredth anniversary falls this year.
Tomàs Luis de Victoria Missa Gaudeamus
Ensemble Gombert
directed by John O’Donnell
Sound artist: Allen Brien
Choir of St Michael’s Grammar School
A presentation by Peter Roberts, Australia’s only music thanatologist. Peter Roberts discusses the way he uses harp playing and Gregorian chant to support terminally ill patients and premature babies.
Johann David Heinichen Dixit Dominus, Magnificat Jan Dismas Zelenka Litaniae Xaverianae (1727)
The Festival Chamber Choir and Baroque Orchestra
directed by Gary Ekkel
A Medieval monastic dinner of rustic food and wine, held in silence interspersed with selections of St Benedict and others read by Robert Gribben.
A sung procession from the Newman College Dining Hall through the Cloisters to the Chapel.
A candle-lit service of lessons and carols following the tradition established in King’s College, Cambridge, presented by the Choir of Newman College.
In medieval French monasteries, the first service of the day would be followed by a play on important feast days. Getron’s Son is one of four surviving medieval plays animating the life of the fourth-century bishop, St Nicholas, whose December feast day is celebrated throughout much of Northern Europe with gift-giving and festivities. The story is told throughout in elegant melodies and haunting chant, complemented by the sounds of Middle-Eastern instruments.
Director: Paul Wentford
King and Director of Music: John Weretka
Euphrosina: Helen Thomson
Getron: Steven Hodgson
Adeodatus: Aidan McGartland
Altera pars: Jacob Lawrence
A celebratory Mass for the Second Sunday in Advent, incorporating the finely crafted Mass for Four Voices by William Byrd. The Byrd Mass is presented by Early Voices, sponsored by the University of Melbourne.
Early Voices
directed by Vivien Hamilton
Shakuhachi: Anne Norman
Chant: Canticum feminarum
Cantor: Helen Thomson
The Festival’s closing concert features a triumphant set of vespers psalms by the leading composers of Louis XIV’s France, including motets by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Henri Dumont.
The Festival Chamber Choir and Baroque Orchestra directed by Gary Ekkel
End of Festival