Love Cannot Dissemble
Wednesday 6 December, 1:15 – 1:50pm
St James King St, Sydney
Tickets in person or online
This programme features beautiful and intriguing duos and solos from some of England’s finest composers for viol. Love Cannot Dissemble, or the power of love and music in an age of war, is the underlying theme. Seventeenth century England was a notoriously fractious age with much of society destabilised due to civil war. Cromwell’s Puritan government banned music almost everywhere, including in church. Many musicians had to find other patronage, often in domestic settings. Viewed in this context, music with a theme of love seems poignantly heartfelt, and music without programmatic themes a welcome retreat for players and listeners.
Dangerous Times and how to survive them
Saturday 18 November, 1pm
St Michael’s Church
Stanmore Music Festival
Josie Ryan, soprano
Brooke Green, Fiona Ziegler, Catherine Upex, Ruby Brallier, viols
music by William Byrd, Matthew Locke, Brooke Green
A Byrd’s Eye View – St Cecilia 2023
Celebrating William Byrd
Sunday 26 November, 3pm
Josie Ryan, soprano
Brooke Green, artistic director, viol
Laura Vaughan, Daniel Yeadon, Fiona Ziegler, Ruby Brallier, Catherine Upex, viols
Glebe Music Festival
Glebe Town Hall, Glebe
Tickets
2023 marks 400 years since the death of one of Elizabeth I’s favourite composers William Byrd. We celebrate his remarkable contribution to music with some of his most famous songs such as My mistress had a little dog and My mind to me a kingdom is. It is a rare treat to have 6 viols and they will feature with a selection of some of his magnificent consorts. Brooke Green pays homage to William Byrd, his contemporary poet Katherine Philips and Australian birds with the premiere of A Byrd’s Eye View.
Palimpsests of Isabella
Wednesday 16 August, 1.15pm – 2pm
St James Church, Kings St, Sydney
Women in Music from Medieval to Modern
Brooke Green, treble viol
Music by Tobias Hume, Martha Bishop, Brooke Green and Elena Kats-Chernin
The French Connection*
Tickets
Bathe yourself in the beautiful and rarely heard French courtly music from the renaissance and baroque. Travel to the courts of Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I, Henry IV, Louis III, the Sun King Louis XIV and his successor Louis XV.
French courtly music for soprano and viols is an unusual genre in Australia and we hope you will be as charmed and thrilled by this music as we are. Our program includes Australian premieres of some beautiful chansons by Etienne Moulinié and Pierre Guedron, alongside music by Phillip van Wilder, Josquin des Prez, Eustache du Caurroy, Pierre Sandrin and Claude de Sermisy. In the second half we move to the high French baroque with virtuosic works by Marin Marais, Saint Colombe and selections from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s ever-popular Les Indes Galantes. We culminate with a visit to the imaginary court of Aphra Behn, with Brooke Green’s setting of her riské poem The Dream.
This is a rare opportunity to hear brilliant young bass viol player Joshua Keller (USA), performing solo pièces and duos with Reidun Turner.
Dress
You might like to arrive with a touch of French courtly attire – perhaps a glittering jewel, a lacy jabot (necktie) or a craftily placed mouche (beauty patch/small pox concealer). Prix for the most elegant!
more about the program
The early French chanson with its charming nonchalance and tinge of melancholy was also performed outside of France, at the cosmopolitan courts of Mary Queen of Scots, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. French music was highly valued, not merely as entertainment but also for its diplomatic influence. For Charles I and Henrietta a new trend arose, where French “ditties” such as those by Guedron were ‘Englished’ (performed with English texts).
Throughout the 18th century, Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes was performed hundreds of times, as an opera-ballet and in arrangements for other musical ensembles. Its enormous success could be partly attributed to its sophisticated, catchy melodies but also to the public’s fascination with its themes of ‘savages’ and slavery. A generation earlier, the English feminist writer Aphra Behn also achieved much success with her novel and play about an African slave leader: Oroonoko or The Royal Slave. Behn was criticised in her time but later celebrated for writing about sexuality from a woman’s point of view, such as in her poem The Dream. We perform Brooke Green’s setting for her imaginary court, in celebration of this abolitionist and humanitarian pioneer.
Performing with a complete consort of Jane Julier viols has been a dream of Brooke’s for the last 10 years and now, for the first time, this is possible. We thank Laura Moore for the generous loan of her Jane Julier bass viol to Josh for his visit to Australia.
Joshua Keller, bass viol (Guest Artist, USA)
Joshua Keller is an avid performer and teacher of viol, lirone, and cello. After studying viola da gamba with Wendy Gillespie and Hille Perl, Josh embarked on an international performance career. He has performed in the early music festivals of Bruges, Bremen, Bloomington, Regensburg, Thüringen, and in the opening ceremonies of the Utrecht Early Music Festival. Early and modern orchestras alike continue to invite him to play the viol solos of Bach’s Passions. He has worked with Opera Theater St. Louis, Opera Studio Netherlands, Opera NEO San Diego, and Scherzi Musicali (BE) playing lirone. He maintains a private teaching studio, teaches viol at the University of Memphis, and cello at the Memphis Music Academy. Joshua also maintains an active local music life playing in chamber ensembles, and recording at local studios. He has recorded with Josh Lee, Masaaki Suzuki, and Música Ficta. Beyond music, Josh loves rollerskating, practicing Pilates and his two boxers, Margot and Hiram.
*Joshua Keller’s visit to Australia is generously supported by The Australian Viola da Gamba Society
1.Thursday 20 April, 5pm – 7pm
Arts in the Valley, Kangaroo Valley Hall, Moss Vale Rd, Kangaroo Valley
Tickets
2. Saturday 22 April, 3pm – 5pm
Glebe Town Hall, Glebe
Avec un thé l’après-midi. (with a French afternoon tea.)
Josie and The Emeralds 