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Our tenth anniversary season centers around an exciting, new project for Calliope's Call: the recording of our debut album! The album, entitled New Moon, celebrates the work of female American composers who were and are especially active in the genre of art song. Seamlessly blending contemporary music with compositions from the twentieth century, New Moon explores the themes of love, sexuality, and gender through the lenses of raw emotions and the power of nature. The program features works by Marion Bauer, Jodi Goble, Sarah Hutchings, and Libby Larsen, and will be the first time many of these songs have been recorded. Performed by soprano Evangelia Leontis, mezzo soprano Megan Roth, and pianist JJ Penna, we look forward to bringing New Moon to listeners everywhere, whether through the recording or our recital tour of New England.

http://www.calliopescall.org/

Join us in our sanctuary for our annual "Major Music" holiday service.

ABOUT THE LORD NELSON MASS:

Composed in 1798, the Lord Nelson Mass was first performed on September 23 of that year and is Haydn’s largest mass, as well as one of his most beloved choral/orchestral works. It is also his only minor-key mass, set in d minor at the opening, but leading to a victorious D major finale. The orchestra does not include woodwinds--Prince Esterhazy had dismissed the wind players to fight in the war--and the use of three trumpets and timpani in the accompaniment creates a military feel, perhaps influencing its name.

The mass is also notable for the “fireworks” demanded of the soprano soloist, in the tragic, war torn Kyrie through the Gloria and beyond. While most contemporary mass settings make a clear distinction between arias and choral sections, as in the manner of opera, the solos and ensemble passages in the Nelson Mass remain closely integrated with the chorus. The “Qui tollis” section of the "Gloria" starts surprisingly in B-flat major, where the bass is accompanied by some lovely scoring for the strings and organ. The soprano returns us to D major for “Quoniam tu solus sanctus,” and Part II ends with a choral fugue.

An extraordinary opening to the "Credo" has the sopranos and tenors competing in canon with the altos and basses to the sound of fanfaring trumpets. “Et incarnatus” begins with a gorgeous aria for the soprano soloist, before the emotional center of the piece is taken up by the chorus who lead to a glorious D major finish once again in “Et resurrexit.”

The "Benedictus" in Part V is a world away from the serene, prayerful setting that might be expected. This is typically presented as a quiet meditation, but Haydn’s setting begins with a stormy orchestral introduction, moving through a series of exchanges between soloists and chorus, to culminate in a strikingly dissonant passage. The G Major "Agnus Dei" provides the chorus a little respite as the soloists take center stage, before “Dona nobis pacem” returns triumphantly to D major in a joyous finale.

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Baroque harpist and multi-instrumentalist, Christa Patton and Columbian soprano, Camila Parias welcome Baroque guitarist, Hideki Yamaya, and percussionist Dan Meyers, in a new collaboration exploring works from the Iberian peninsula and the New World. This program displays the craftsmanship of 17th century Spanish poetry while exploring Spain’s colorful dance forms and their interconnectedness with the song repertoire.

The program presents the pleasures and treacheries of love depicted in nature by the birds, wind, sea, and forest. This rich poetic landscape is delivered to us by way of the sumptuous sound world of 17th century Spanish songs and dances and includes master composers Juan Hidalgo, Juan de Návas, José Marín, Cristóbal Galán, Santiago de Murcia, Diego Fernádez de Huete and more. Some of the vocal selections today are taken from a collection of 17 th century songs located at the Hispanic Society of America in New York City and compiled by Lola Jose and Mariano Lambea.

BIOS:

Colombia native Camila Parias is a frequent soloist with the Boston Camerata. Parias, whose tone has been praised for its strength and clarity, also collaborates with ensembles such as La Donna Musicale, Skylark Ensemble, and Handel and Haydn Society. Her international appearances include performances in Europe of Borrowed Light with the Boston Camerata. She can be heard on Camerata’s most recent CDs, Free America! and A Medieval Christmas – Hodie Christus Natus Est. She holds a B.M. in Vocal Performance from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana of Bogota and a M.M. in Historical Performance from the Longy School of Music of Bard College.

Christa Patton, historical harpist and early wind specialist, has performed throughout the Americas, Europe, and Japan with many of today’s premier early music ensembles including Piffaro the Renaissance Band, Early Music New York, Boston Camerata, The King’s Noyse, Folger Consort, Newberry Consort, Apollo’s Fire, Parthenia, ARTEK and Chatham Baroque. As a Baroque harpist specializing in 17th century opera, Christa has performed with New York City Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Opera Atelier and the Opera Theater of Saint Louis. As an educator and scholar, Christa has served on the faculty of Rutgers University and the Graduate Center at CUNY. She is also the director of the Baroque Opera Workshop at Queens College, a workshop specializing in period-specific performance practice of 17th century musical drama. Christa can be heard on Zefiro, ATMA classiques, Ex Cathedra, Dorian, Navona, and Lyrachord labels.

Hideki Yamaya is a performer of lutes, early guitars, and early mandolins based in Connecticut. He has a B.A. in Music and an M.A. in Ethnomusicology from University of California, Santa Cruz, and an M.F.A. in Guitar and Lute Performance. He also studied with James Tyler at University of Southern California and with Paul Beier at Accademia Internazionale della Musica in Milan, Italy. In demand both as a soloist and as a continuo/chamber player, Hideki has performed with and for Portland Baroque Orchestra, Portland Opera, Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Los Angeles Opera, Oregon Bach Festival, Astoria Music Festival, Folger Consort, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. He is one half of the Schneiderman-Yamaya Duo and is the artistic director of Musica Maestrale, an early music collective based in Portland, Oregon. He has given masterclasses and workshops at Yale University, University of California, Santa Cruz, Montana State University, Oregon State University, and Aquilon Music Festival. A prolific recording artist, Hideki’s playing could be heard on Profil, hänssler CLASSIC, and Mediolanum labels. His recordings have received glowing reviews from Early Music America, Classical Guitar Magazine, and the Guitar Foundation of America.

Multi-instrumentalist, Dan Meyers is a flexible and engaging performer of both classical andfolk music; his credits range from premieres of contemporary chamber music, to headlining a concert series in honor of Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival, to playing Renaissance instruments on Broadway for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre Company. He is a founding member of the early music/folk crossover group Seven Times Salt, and in recent seasons he has performed with the The Folger Consort, The Newberry Consort, Hesperus, Dünya, The Henry Purcell Society of Boston, Early Music New York, Amherst Early Music, The 21st Century Consort, In Stile Moderno, and the Cambridge Revels, making concert and theatrical appearances in NYC, Washington DC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Memphis, Santa Fe, at the Yellow Barn Festival in Vermont, and at at the "La Luna e i Calanchi" festival in Basilicata (Italy). He enjoys playing traditional Irish music with the bands Ulster Landing and Ishna, as well as eclectic fusion from around the Mediterranean with the US/Italy-based group Zafarán; he also played winds and percussion for over a decade with the award-winning Italian folk music group Newpoli. As an educator, he has taught historical wind instruments for the Five Colleges Early Music Program in Massachusetts, at Tufts University, and at festivals and workshops around the Northeast.

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Renowned for his interpretations of the First Viennese School, Brahms, Schumann and Chopin, Franco-Canadian Pianist Paul-André Bempéchat is a self-styled, eclectic product of the Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School, where he worked with the legendary performer-teachers Artur Balsam, Felix Galimir, and Nadia Reisenberg in piano and chamber music, and Martin Isepp in vocal accompanying.

Decorated as Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, and as Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academic Chapel at Uppsala University, M. Bempéchat has toured in virtually every country in Europe, including major appearances at the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Barbican Centre London, the Philharmonics in Meiningen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Rotterdam and Belgrade; he has also appeared at the Wiener Festwochen, the Husum Festival of Rarities for the Piano, the Caramoor and Holland Festivals, and most recently Uppsala University. Colleagues and critics alike have hailed him as a singularly lucid, introspective interpreter capable of drawing audiences into a near-palpable relationship with the select composers he performs.


http://www.bempechat.com/

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First Church’s own keyboardist, singer, arranger, and composer Richard Curzi, returns to the stage with his band Positive Energy for the first time in FIVE YEARS!

Positive Energy is Richard on keyboards and vocals, Roger Brown on percussion, Jim Wooster on guitar and vocals, Paul Judge on guitar and vocals, Rick Dimino on bass, and Bridget Curzi, Kate Donovan, and Roger Read on vocals.

This concert will feature a collection of original music by Richard, Roger Brown, Jim Wooster, Bridget Curzi, and John McAlpin — all members and friends of the the First Church community. The second set will pay tribute to musical artists we lost in the past year.

This will be a night you won’t want to miss!

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Mike Block is a pioneering cello player, singer, composer, and educator, passionate about cross-cultural collaboration through music. Acclaimed by the New York Times for his "vital rich-hued solo playing”, and by Salt Lake City Desert News as “a true artist... a sight to behold”, Mike Block “is one of the bravest, most intriguing musicians on the American fusion scene.” (Gramophone). Mike's performances offer a rich mixture of classical repertoire, folk music, original compositions, and songs. Since 2005, Mike has been a member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, with which he has been featured as both cello and vocal soloist, contributed arrangements and compositions, and earned a Grammy Award in 2017 for their album Sing Me Home.

Mike is among the first wave of cellists to adopt a strap to stand and move while performing. Using his patented design, The Block Strap. Mike was the first standing cellist to perform at Carnegie Hall, which the New York Times characterized as "breathless ... half dance, half dare." In 2020, Mike founded Play For The Vote, which organizes musical performances at polling locations across the country on Election Day, with the goal of increasing voter turnout by providing a more positive voting experience. As an educator, he is the founder/Director of two summer programs: the Mike Block String Camp, as well as Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop. Mike teaches online through his Multi-Style Cello School at ArtistWorks.com, and is on faculty of New England Conservatory.

www.MikeBlockMusic.com

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Wilmington, NC based organist Kira Garvie grew up in the beautiful Hudson Valley of Upstate New York. She received her undergraduate degree in organ performance from Boston University, where she sang in the Marsh Chapel Choir and was a regular continuo player for the Boston University Baroque Chamber Ensembles. After undergrad, she moved to Bloomington, Indiana, where she completed a master’s degree in organ and sacred music and a performer’s diploma in organ performance at Indiana University. Kira is passionate about musical education and the history and development of congregational singing. When not playing music, she loves quilting, knitting, and exploring local parks and hiking trails.

This concert will be held in the First Church sanctuary, home of our magnificent Casavant organ.

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An evening of songs from across the United States, for inspiration and support of voting rights. Presented in collaboration with FCB's UU The Vote.

LAURA BETH COUCH, lauded by The Boston Musical Intelligencer for singing with “deep pathos” and “radiant affection,” is a mezzo-soprano living in Boston. She has greatly enjoyed singing at the First Church in Belmont, Unitarian Universalist for over a year and a half. She earned her Performance Diploma from Boston University where she performed Julia Child in Bon Appétit, Dorothée in Cendrillon, Alice 2 in Alice Tierney, and Friedrich Bhaer in Little Women. She also earned her M.M. in Voice Performance from Shenandoah University and her B.M. in Music Education from Rutgers University. Laura just returned from performing at the Bay View Music Festival in Northern Michigan for a second summer in a row. At Bay View, she performed the roles of La Ciesca in Gianni Schicchi, La Zelatrice in Suor Angelica, Tisbe in La Cenerentola, and Babette in Beauty and the Beast. In addition to opera, Laura has been the mezzo-soprano soloist for numerous concerts across the country and in the Boston area. These include the First Church’s Major Music Series Concerts of Bononcini’s Stabat Mater and Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, along with Fanny Hensel’s Lobegesang, Handel’s Messiah, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Mozart’s Requiem, Coronation Mass, Regina coeli, and Marianna Martines’s Dixit Dominus. Coming up at First Church, she will be performing Bach’s Magnificat. Laura is also a dedicated and passionate music teacher of over 10 years. Most recently, she taught voice at Boston University to undergraduate non-music majors, and currently teaches music lessons at Wellan Montessori School.

MIKAYLA ROGERS holds a doctorate degree from Florida State University, studying with Valerie Trujillo and Dr. Timothy Hoekman. Her research centers around the art songs of American composer Judith Cloud. Mikayla’s desire to perform and learn in different settings has taken her to several summer festivals, including Music in the Marche in Mondavio, Italy, and the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Austria. In the summer of 2023, she participated in Source Song Festival in Minneapolis, working with the world’s leading collaborative pianists and premiering an art song by composer Hannah Cai Sobel. Her most recent engagements include playing for two Rossini operas (Il barbiere di Siviglia, La Cenerentola) as a harpsichordist and rehearsal pianist for the Florida State University Opera and Bay View Music Festival in Michigan. Mikayla received her Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance at Northern Arizona University under the instruction of Dr. Frank Scott and her Master’s in Piano Accompanying at Florida State University under Dr. Timothy Hoekman. She is currently on the faculty at Binghamton University, NY as a vocal coach.

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This program will explore the Celtic roots of Halloween as it is derived from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. According to Minogue “Samhain, or Halloween as it has come to be known, was actually New Year's Eve on the old Irish and Celtic calendar and was arguably the most important day of their year! The tradition of otherworldly creatures coming to life on Halloween has its origins in the ancient feast of Samhain.” Come celebrate Harvest and Halloween in music, song and story.

As traditional Irish music and dance continue to enjoy phenomenal success both here and in Ireland, Áine Minogue is an artist who has long explored its themes and who captures its very essence. Her voice reflects the lyricism and richness to be found in Irish music, mythology and poetry with a voice undeniably her own and a diverse group of instruments that add to the traditional flavor of her work. Ireland's The Guardian said ". . . it is in performance that the real Áine Minogue emerges....through her sheer talent as a musician and storyteller . . ." while Entertainment Weekly calls Minogue “A Breath of fresh Eire.”

Born in Borrisokane, County Tipperary, Áine moved from Ireland to the United States as an adult and settled in New England. She continues to concentrate on the traditional music of her homeland, both as a soloist and collaborator, exploring the ancient art form, but adding her own creativity to each piece. She has entertained former Irish Presidents and Prime Ministers, and is a regular performer at folk festivals and concerts throughout the United States.

Áine has done extensive research regarding Celtic Halloween traditions and unearthed some unusual and haunting selections from Scotland, Wales, Brittany and Ireland. Otherwordly creatures and the otherworld feature heavily e.g. The song entitled “The Silkie” is about a mermaid who has come to live on land but is constantly drawn by the lure of the sea. According to Minogue “the sea was its own whole otherworld and many songs, stories and tunes have come down to us that reflect this.” Such selections as “Spereed Holvedal” (Spirits of the World) from Brittany (A Celtic section of France) will also be featured. Many of these selections can be found on Ásine’s album entitled “The Twilight Realm,” which delves into the Celtic otherworld.

Áine's other recordings include The Mysts of Time (NS) Between the Worlds (BMG), Circle of the Sun (BMG) Celtic Meditation Music (Sounds True), Celtic Lamentations (2005 Celtic album of the Year; One of the Boston Globe’s 10 albums of 2006) and Celtic Pilgrimage (2008). Numerous tracks of her music appear on compilations for such labels as BMG, Virgin, Rounder, and Putumayo in varying styles including Celtic, world, folk and new age. She has completed extensive soundtrack work for TV including Fox, PBS, NBC, CBS, ABC, MTV and Cable.

ÁINE MINOGUE'S WEBSITE

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Experience transcendent Christmas music, featuring a superb all-female ensemble of voices and instruments.

The sounds of Christmas spirituality from Medieval France, Italy, England, and Provence, including music of the church and songs of private devotion around the joyous theme of the Nativity. Included are songs to the Virgin Mary, processionals from Saint Martial of Limoges, hymns, lyrics, and miracle ballads sung in Latin, Old French, Old Provençal, and Saxon, interlaced with Medieval English texts of the Nativity.

BOSTON CAMERATA WEBSITE

Join us in our sanctuary for our annual "Major Music" holiday service.