Date/Time
Date(s) - November 13, 2015
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm

Location
Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at UBC

Categories No Categories

Dialogos Ensemble – Swithun – A Medieval Miracle Play

Ensemble Dialogos, ensemble for Medieval Music; Katarina Livljanić, director and vocalist; Christel Boiron, vocalist; Clara Coutouly, vocalist; Caroline Gesret, vocalist

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One of Dialogos’s favourite repertoires, early medieval polyphony from Winchester, is at the origin of this programme. Through the voice of Wulfstan the Cantor, it follows the path of a penitent man haunted by his visionary or terrifying dreams, trying to escape from three raging Furies, wild like wolves, and finally finding salvation from Swithun, saint of all miracles.

“Ms. Livljanic enacted the ancient drama with splendidly pure singing, urgent narration, a penetrating gaze and expressive hands. (…) almost startlingly modern and metaphysical at times.” – The New York Times

One of ensemble Dialogos’s favorite repertoires – early medieval polyphony from Winchester (10^th-11^th c.) – is at the origin of this program. This project is a continuation of our work on early polyphonic repertoires, in collaboration with Susan Rankin from Cambridge University, the principal international specialist of the earliest medieval polyphonic repertoires: after the program Abbo Abbas, created in 2004 (and performed more than fifty times in numerous international festivals), inspired by the personality of Abbon de Fleury, one of the most prominent men of the 10^th century, we explore the polyphonic repertoires from the famous Winchester Troper, one of the richest and earliest records of notated polyphony in Western medieval music.

Through the voice of Wulfstan the Cantor, we follow the path of a penitent man haunted by his visionary and terrifying dreams, trying to escape from three raging Furies, wild like wolves, and finally finding salvation from Swithun, saint of all miracles.

http://www.earlymusic.bc.ca/events/dialogos-ensemble-swithun-a-medieval-miracle-play/