Friday October 18th, 2024, at 12 Noon

The Arms Library
Corner of Bridge and Main Streets
Shelburne Falls

Triumphs and Laments

A concert of six-voice a cappella works
from the late 16th Century

Cantabile is a six-voice self-directed ensemble based in the Pioneer Valley that specializes in a cappella performances of vocal chamber music from the European Renaissance, while also singing music of other eras up to the present. The group was founded in 2001, and since then has performed dozens of concerts throughout the Valley and beyond, most recently an all-Gesualdo program in April entitled “The Prince of Love and Death,” as well as two guest appearances with Arcadia Players,  the Valley's period instrument ensemble, during their 2023-24 concert season. Cantabile’s current members are Maki Matsui,
James Mead, Peter Shea, Aidan Linden, Katrina Turner and Nina Wurgaft, all of them former and current members of numerous other choral groups in the region.
The "Triumphs and Laments" program will explore how composers of the late European Renaissance expressed an astonishingly wide range of emotions in both secular and sacred music utilizing just five or six unaccompanied voices. Celebratory works will contrast with sorrowful laments, and madrigals will lay bare both the rapture and despair of love. The composers will include great masters of the period like
William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Carlo Gesualdo and Philippe de Monte, as well as lesser-known figures like the pioneering woman composer Maddalena Casulana, one of whose recently recovered madrigals will receive its first American performance.