'Prima Melodia: Birth of Baroque' (April 26-28, 2024)

Prima Melodia posterVocal music of the 1600s, (the seicento) was greatly different from the counterpoint and polychoral pieces of the earlier Renaissance era. This then-new style, which was born in Florence, Venice, and Rome, emphasized singing and the singer’s ability to express emotion or affect through the text and highly ornamented vocal lines.
It is this emotional expression that has created a resurgence of both secular and sacred baroque music in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Seicento’s Founder and Artistic Director Evanne Browne conducted her finale performances with Seicento April 26-28 in Denver, Boulder, and Longmont before she retired after this program.
The  repertoire for Prima Melodia: Birth of Baroque showcased some of the Italianate genre’s most popular and influential vocal compositions. Browne worked with 4 Apprentice Artists for months, sharing her expertise in early Italian styles and vocal techniques. The apprentices showed off what they’ve learned as they presented music by Claudio Monteverdi, the rarely heard but demanding vocal music of Luzzasco Luzzaschi, and, as soloists from within the choir, a “concerted madrigal.” This specialized style became popular at the beginning of the baroque period, as it added instruments like violins and continuo to the madrigal form. The featured piece, “Venga dal diel migliore” by Giovannie Rovetta, contrasted the ornamented vocal solo lines with the solid homophony of the choral voices.
Other performers joining Seicento for Prima Melodia: Birth of Baroque included: 
  • Daniel Hutchings, tenor.
  • Stacey Brady and Brune Macary, baroque violins.
  • Linda Lunbeck, recorder.
  • Sarah Biber, baroque cello.
  • William Simms, theorbo.
  • Webb Wiggins, harpsichord

'Embellish! Improvisation & Jazz' (Feb. 29-March 1-2, 2023)

Seicento Artistic Director Evanne Browne and guest artists for Seicento's "Embellish!" concerts March 1 and 2, 2024.It’s hard to picture two musical groups as un-similar as an acoustic jazz trio and a 41-voice baroque vocal ensemble. But there is indeed a single item that binds them: improvisation, which draws on musicians’ ability to bend, embellish, and interpret a melodic line in new and creative ways.
Embellish! Improvisation in Baroque & Jazz, Seicento Baroque Ensemble’s series of  concerts and demonstration/workshops took place Feb. 29-March 2 in Lafayette, Longmont and Golden. The performances examined how musical improvisation is vital to musical expression in both baroque music and jazz, despite a nearly 300-year musical separation between the two.
“In both eras, improvisation is required to turn static melodic lines into personal expression on the part of the performers,” said Seicento Artistic Director Evanne Browne. “We’re calling our events ‘exploration-performances,’ as they’ll allow our audiences to learn how improvisation is vital in both music and in life.”
Browne brought together a wide-ranging cast to create a series of workshops and formal concerts across the Front Range, all exploring the role of improvisation in the creative process:
  • Seicento Baroque Ensemble, a 36-voice baroque choir with instrumentalists, from Boulder.
  • The Mark Diamond Jazz Trio, from Denver.
  • Dr. Tina Chancey, a Washington, D.C., early music specialist and scholar known for her improvisational skills with medieval fiddles and viola da gamba among other instruments, who presents workshops on improvisation’s role in both music and social interaction.
  • Seicento’s Apprentice Artists, who received advanced training on baroque-era improvisation and vocal embellishments, as they advance in their professional musical careers.
“Rare Byrd” Seicento concert, Nov. 17-19, 2023

Seicento marked the  400th anniversary of the death of English composer William Byrd with performances of Rare Byrd Nov. 17-19 in Denver, Boulder, and Longmont. Byrd was the foremost composer of Elizabethan England, best known for his development of the English madrigal and also virginal and organ music that elevated the English keyboard style. While many choirs this season are performing Byrd’s spectacular masses for four and five voices, Seincento instead presented an assortment of Byrd’s lesser-known works, including sacred verse anthems and secular consort songs—music for violas da gamba and voice. These beautiful, rarely heard pieces tell of courtly love, moral temptations, and lament over misspent youth. Seicento was led by Artistic Director Evanne Browne, and joined by five of the area’s finest gamba players:  Adaiha MacAdam-Somer, Zoe Weiss, Sarah Graf, Sarah Biber, and Karl Reque. In a first for Seicento, all solo vocal parts in the concerts were performed by members of the Seicento choir—a testament to the vocal strength and quality of the group’s current singers.



‘Glamoure, Drag and
the Baroque Voice,’
Oct. 6, 2023

Actor and singer Luke North, AKA Lucia Glamoure

Actor and singer Luke North, AKA Lucia Glamoure, presented a recital of baroque soprano arias Oct. 6 at Ballmer Peak Distillery in Lakewood, Colorado. Men singing in falsetto while costumed as women were common in the Baroque era. This special event combined drag and opera with a glamorous flair. Glamoure was accompanied by keyboardist (and Seicento accompanist) Jerimiah Otto.

Bach’s immortal
St. John Passion,
May 5-7, 2023

Seicento presented J.S. Bach’s monumental St. John Passion, in the first performances in Colorado with all-original instruments.

Seicento presented three full-length performances of J. S. Bach’s monumental St. John Passion and produced a live simulcast performance that is still available to viewers. Seicento’s performances were the first time Colorado audiences heard the work performed with the instruments of the period, and audiences were wowed by the mellow sounds of wooden flutes, baroque oboes, baroque strings, fabulous viola da gamba solos, baroque bassoon, and the enormous baroque bassono grosso—a visual and aural surprise to our audiences.  Many people heard their first countertenor (a male alto), and Roger O. Isaacs was fabulous.  Other outstanding soloists outdid themselves: Amanda Balestrieri, soprano; Sean Robert Stephenson, tenor arias; apprentice artist Nathan Jensen, bass; Scott Perry, Jesus; Derek Berger, Pontius Pilate; and Daniel Hutchings, evangelist.  And the choir reached an all-time high with an inspired and expressive performance worthy of our audience’s enthusiasm.     

Here’s what was said about Seicento’s performances:

  • “Wow, there is no way to understand the vastness of this experience without being here!  And to see and hear the period instruments, the various bowings and unique sound quality was just wonderful!”
  • “I heard this from an old friend in California, who has long said that a Seicento performance years ago ‘changed [his] life’”
  • “That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard! It was a wonderful experience.”
  • “That was amazing. I never thought I’d hear something like that in Denver.”
  • The evangelist did an amazing job – what stamina he must have! And yes, we’d like a lot more of the countertenor…That last chorus just before the final chorale is so especially beautiful! Nothing like having my head full of Bach!”
  • “Everything was as advertised, an outstanding experience on many levels — emotional, philosophical, linguistic, historical, religious, and personal.”
  • “The choir and soloists made the messages come alive, so we wept right along with the characters portrayed.”
  • And [choristers looked] poised as always, in a two-hour performance that would test anyone’s stamina, faculties, and emotional fortitude. Bravo!!
  • “Loved, loved, loved the concert yesterday of the St. John. Bravi to all, and especially to Evanne for her foresight, devotion, expertise, and superior guidance. I’m looking forward to more in the future. Thank you.”
  • “What you are doing for the Colorado community and beyond is truly inspiring! I hope that your valuable work with this ensemble can continue and grow for many, many years to come.i

“Noel: Christmas in the late Renaissance & early Baroque”

Music that spans the transition from the Renaissance polyphonic style to the early baroque’s ornate singing style and baroque compositional techniques.

Seicento Baroque Ensemble welcomed the holidays Dec. 2–4, 2022, with ”Nöel: Christmas in the Late Renaissance and Early Baroque.” The years around 1600 marked a significant change from Renaissance polyphony to the new melodies and prominent bass line of the ornate Baroque era, a musical style still used today in music including classical, musical theater, jazz, and even rock and roll.  Seicento’s founding director Evanne Browne returned to the podium with an augmented vocal ensemble for a delightful exploration of the baroque ensemble’s musical roots with gorgeous music by Palestrina, Victoria, Scheidt, Sweelinck, and Rossi, along with such favorites as the original setting of Michael Praetorius’ Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming and The Boar’s Head Carol.  Performed in German, Latin, Dutch, Spanish, and English, the program included the original version of stunningly beautiful arrangements of carols familiar to today’s listeners in a cappella and accompanied settings.  Guest artists were Wesley Leffingwell, organ; Steve Winograd and Linda Lunbeck, recorders; and Joseph Howe, baroque cello.

Here’s what was said about our performances in December:

  • “Such beautiful music! It was wonderful to hear each note of the complex chords sung so clearly!” 
  • “We were enchanted by the music.”
  • There’s no other way to say it, I was blown away! I really loved ‘Angelus ad Virginem’ and ‘Hodie Christus natus est’, among others. Evanne, your ensemble is truly angelic. Several times throughout the performance, I found myself with eyes closed, soaking it all in. Truly amazing!  I loved the recorder solos!
  • The harmonies in the “O Magnum Mysterium” were beautiful to hear. Woo Hoo!”
  • “This concert is WONDERFUL!!! The music is so complicated and requires you to be in perfect sync — and you all were! I was feeling depressed about the holidays but I received this early Christmas present from your group and it has put me in the holiday spirit.”
  • “I am so glad I went. I have never heard this kind of music before and it was just lovely, beautiful!” 
  • “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for inviting me! I REALLY needed to hear this music.”
Written correspondence

P. O. Box 171, Boulder, CO, United States, 80306

 

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info@seicentobaroque.org

(720)772-1610

 

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