St Cecilia 2017

Saturday 25 November

7pm – 8pm

Laura Vaughan

Laura Vaughan, viols (guest artist)

Josie Ryan, soprano

Brooke Green, director and viol

Fiona Ziegler, Catherine Upex, Annika Stagg, viols

Each year Josie and the Emeralds celebrate St Cecilia, Patron Saint of Music at the Glebe Music Festival. This year we bring arias from John Blow’s beautiful and rarely performed Ode for St Cecilia’s Day, 1691. Also, Monteverdi’s La Musica from his ground-breaking opera Orfeo with music by the magnificent William Byrd, the much-loved John Jenkins and the visionary Christopher Tye.

Our guest artist, the dynamic and acclaimed viol player Laura Vaughan is soloist for Brooke Green’s Reza Barati, a moving and dramatic portrayal of Reza Barati’s murder on Manus Island in 2014. In 2017, another refugee died on Manus Island: Hamed Shamshiripour. We premiere Brooke Green’s Hamed Shamshiripour: a setting of some of Hamed’s last words.

Shamim, Misbah and Batoh are three refugee girls trapped on Nauru who in October 2016, were featured in the Four Corners program The Forgotten Children. Since then, Brooke Green has written music intended as musical gifts for them. (Shamim was premiered at the Glebe Music Festival, 2016.) This year, the concert will include a performance of Batoh. (2017).

There are two more premieres by Brooke Green: Cock-a-hoop (a 17^th century term meaning “to allow liquor to flow liberally”) and Chavela in honour of the singer herself. Chavela Vargas was a Mexican ranchera singer, greatly admired by Pedro Almodovar and featured in his films. Almodovar recently directed the biopic Chavela – an audience favourite at the 2017 Sydney Film Festival.

Glebe Town Hall

160 St Johns Rd, Glebe NSW 2037

$35 / $25 concessions

tickets available at the door or in advance

Glebe Music Festival

Past Concerts in 2017

Claudio Monteverdi, 1567 – 1643

Sunday 9 July, 3 PM – 4 PM

Monteverdi y España!

Monteverdi – the Spanish connection!

Monteverdi was born in Cremona when, as part of the territory of Milan, it was in Spanish possession. Therefore he was born a Spanish citizen! Come to our July concert and discover the Spanish connections of Monteverdi and the Gonzaga family who employed him!

This intimate concert features four viols and harp with soprano.

Josie Ryan, soprano
Brooke Green, director, treble viol
Fiona Ziegler, tenor viol; Annika Stagg and Catherine Upex, bass viol

With Verna Lee, harp

Bookings  $30 / $20 (conc.)

Christ Church St Laurence, Sydney  

Wendy Gillespie

Monteverdi and the Golden Age

Friday 7 April, 6 PM-7 PM

St Mary’s cathedral Crypt, St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney

Sunday 9 April, 2.30 PM – 4:00 PM

Blessed Sacrament Church, Clifton Gardens, Sydney

Wendy Gillespie, (USA), Guest Musical Director, treble viol

Josie Ryan, soprano,

Brooke Green, Artistic Director, treble viol

Fiona Ziegler, Catherine Upex, Annika Stagg, Laura Moore; viols

Jacques Emery, double bass (9 April)

We are delighted to welcome Wendy Gillespie, one of the world’s leading viol players, as Guest Music Director for these concerts. Wendy played for many years with the iconic viol consorts Fretwork and Phantasm, has shared three Gramophone Awards and has made more than 100 recordings.

This is a rare opportunity to hear a programme with music for 6 viols. The 17th century was a golden age for music in England with the ‘Grave Music’ of viol fantasies being hailed for their ‘Divine Raptures’, ‘Pathettical Stories’, and ‘Sublime Discourses’. In this program we present the peak of this repertoire: some sumptuous six-part viol fantasias by the venerated John Jenkins, Orlando Gibbons and William Lawes. 

Monteverdi’s Stile moderno with its expressive word painting and achingly bitter-sweet dissonances was an important influence on the development of the late English viol fantasia.  We celebrate Monteverdi’s 450th birthday with his large-scale Sestina from his Sixth Book of Madrigals; Coppini’s sacred re-texting for Passiontide of Ecco Silvio from the Fifth Book;  and the heart-rending Lamento della Ninfa from the Eighth Book. 

The program includes the premiere of Brooke Green’s Batoh (a remix of Elena Kats-Chernin’s The Rain Puzzle). This work is dedicated to Batoh, one of the refugee children still in limbo on Nauru.

La Dolce Vita

Saturday 15 April, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM

Santa Sabina College, Strathfield, Sydney

Easter Viol School, Australian Viola da Gamba Society

The Languishing Heart

Wednesday 11 January, 1:15 PM-1:45 PM

St James Church, King Street, Sydney

Josie Ryan, soprano, Brooke Green, Director, treble viol,

 Fiona Ziegler, Catherine Upex, viols