Music for the Yuletide Season with the Baltimore Consort

WEST CAPE MAY – Access to Art will present the famed Baltimore Consort with “Waissail, Wassail! Music for the Yuletide Season,” Old Carols and Dance Tunes from the British Isles, France, Spain and Appalachia on Dec. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Willow Creek Winery at 168 Stevens St., West Cape May. The event is partially underwritten by the Frank & Lydia Bergen Foundation. An evening of mulled wine, and selected wines from the vineyard will be available to those who wish to purchase them to accompany the concert. Tickets for the concert are $25. Adults, and $20. Seniors.
Founded in 1980 to perform the instrumental music of Shakespeare’s time, the Baltimore Consort has explored early English, Scottish, French and Spanish popular music, focusing on the relationship between folk and art song and dance. Their interest in early music of English/Scottish heritage has also led them to delve into the rich trove of traditional music preserved in North America. Recordings on the Dorian label have earned them recognition as Top classical-Crossover Artist of the Year (Billboard), as well as rave reviews elsewhere. Besides touring the U.S. and abroad, they often perform on such syndicated radio broadcasts as St. Paul Sunday, Performance Today, Harmonia and the CBS’s OnStage.
The Baltimore Consort includes Mary Anne Ballard, viols, rebec; Mark Cudek, cittern, viol, crumhorn;Jose Lemos- countertenor, Larry Lipkin, viol, recorder, gemshorn, crumhorn, Ronn McFarlane, lutes, Mindy Rosenfeld, wooden flutes and fifes, pipes, crumhorn. The musicians are incredibly talented and engaged in Early Music at all levels.
Mary Anne Ballard directed or coached early music at the Peabody Conservatory, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania where she founded the Collegium Musicum and produced medieval music drama. She is now on the faculty of Oberlin’s Summer Baroque Performance Institute. She also researches many of the Consort’s programs. She plays with Galileo’s Daughter, Brio, Mr. Jefferson’s Musicans and Fleur dy Lys. A resident of Indiana and New York City, she music-directed the Play of Daniel for 75th Anniversary of the opening of the Cloisters Museum in New York and will do so again on Dec. 27-29 at Trinity Wall St. Church, NYC. Mark Cudek, Director of the Early Music program at the Peabody conservatory, and also Artistic Director of the Indianapolis Early Music Festival is a member of the Baltimore Consort. In recognition of his work as Founder/Director of the Peabody Renaissance Ensemble and also the High School Early Music Program at the Interlochen Arts Camp, Mark received from Early Music America the 2001 Thomas Binkley Award and the 2005 Award for Outstanding Contribution to Early Music Education. He has regularly performed with Apollo’s Fire, the Catacoustic Concort, and Hesperus, and in his youth worked as a café guitarist in the Virgin Islands. Jose Lemon won the 2003 International Baroue Vocal Competition in Chimay, Belgium. A native of Brazil and Uruguay, he has since appeared in operas across the globe including Tanglewood, Lincoln Center, the Seattle Early Music Guild, The Boston Baroque, and sang the role of Darius in the Cloisters Play of Daniel at the Cloisters Museum in NYC. Larry Lipkis is Composer-in-residence and Director of Early Music at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa. His cello concerto, Scaramouche, appears on the Koch label, and his bass trombone concerto, Harlequin, was premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic to rave reviews. The trilogy was completed when his bassoon concert Pierrot was performed by the Houston Symphony. He has also served as Music Director for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. Larry often lectures on the topic of Bach and Rhetoric, speaking recently at an NEH course in Leipzig. Ron McFarlane has released over 25 CDs on Dorian, including solo collections, lute songs, Elizabethan lute music and poetry and Baltimore Consort albums. Recently, in the tradition of the lutenist/composers of past centuries, Ronn has composed new music for the lute. These original compositions are the focus of his solo CD, Indigo Road, which received a Grammy Award nomination in 2009. .Mindy Rosenfeld, a founding member of the Baltimore Consort whose playing graced our first decade, is also a long-time member of San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. Fluent in a wide range of musical styles, she plays both wooden and modern flutes in addition to recorders, whistles, crumhorns, and early harp. Mindy actively freelances on the West Coast and is a Principal flute at the Mendocino Music Festival in her hometown.
Chistmas Music will span the centuries beginning in the 1500’s and will include the Lord of the Dance, On Christmas Night, Peace Be with You, Sweet was the Song the Virgin Sung, the Fairy Round (lute solo), Good King Wenceslas, Here We Come A Waissailing, A Wassail, A Waissail Throughout All this Town!, Sellengers Round, an Elizabethan country dance tune from the l6th century, Wondrous Love, Southern Harmony 1835, The Ladyes Delight and Jumpe at My Cozen, a Paris Virginal ca. l630. Green Sleeves to a Ground (flute 1706), Chrisimas Day, Lancashire tradition, Masters in this Hall, Riu, Riu Chfu, Venice 1556, Quem Pastores Laudavere, Ding Dong Merrily and three French tunes: Branles d’escosse, Il est ne, le divin enfant!, Quelle est cette odeur agreeable, Noel nouvelet! , all French traditional music. Send checks to Access to Art, Inc., 417 E. Pacific Ave., Cape May Court House, N.J. 08210. Call (609) 465-3963 for reservations. Tickets will be available at the door from 6 p.m. on the evening of the concert.