Imaginario: An Imaginary Songbook of Renaissance Spanish music
$48.50 CAD ($24.25 CAD ages 35 & younger; indigenous free, limit 1 per person)
- Ariel Abramovich, vihuela de mano
- María Cristina Kiehr, soprano
Josquin des Prez — Selected works
Luys de Narváez — Selected works
Cristóbal de Morales — Selected works
Miguel de Fuenllana — Selected works
Adrian Willaert — Selected works
Giulio Segni — Selected works
Anonymous — Cancionero de Upsala
Jacques Arcadelt — Selected works
Thousands of vihuelas were built and played during the sixteenth century. Still, only five or six survived; and to complicate matters, there are differing opinions about whether these surviving instruments should be called vihuelas or guitars. If so many people played the vihuela in 16th-century Spain, why are there so few surviving instruments? Were they converted into guitars at a later date, or did they perish in the annual bonfires that took place on the feast of San Juan?
The body of surviving books of the vihuela repertoire, numbered at seven, is also very small. One reason for this is that printing materials, especially the purpose-specific type needed to print vihuela tablature, were scarce. From the surviving vihuela books and other manuscript sources, Ariel Abramovich’s has created a new imaginary songbook that provides an essential contribution to the vihuela repertoire with various instrumental and vocal combinations. Some of the composers that make up the new anthology are Mudarra, Pisador, Vásquez, and Morales, and the influential madrigalists Willaert and Arcadelt. The transformation of many polyphonic madrigals into accompanied lute songs met with great success in Italy and was mirrored by vihuelists in Spain.
Imaginario offers a listening experience that blends the real and the imaginary without a discernible line of demarcation.
Please note this performance is being sold at 100% capacity.
About Ariel Abramovich, vihuela de mano
About María Cristina Kiehr, soprano
María Cristina Kiehr was born in Argentina where she received her early musical training. In 1983 she came to Europe and studied under René Jacobs at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with the aim of specializing in the Baroque repertoire. At the same time she took courses in vocal technique with Eva Krasnai. She is one of today's leading vocal artists in the field of Baroque music and has appeared throughout the world in concerts and recordings with celebrated conductors, orchestras and ensembles like René Jacobs, Jordi Savall, Philippe Herreweghe, Frans Brüggen, Gustav Leonhardt, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Konrad Junghänel, Concerto Vocale, La Fenice, Cantus Cölln, Ensemble Vocal Européen, Hespèrion XX, Elyma, Nederlands Kamerkoor, Concerto Köln, Ensemble 415, etc.
María Cristina Kiehr is particularly interested in early Baroque music. She is a co-founder of the ensemble La Colombina.
In 1988 she made her opera debut in Innsbruck in Cavalli's Giasone under René Jacobs. She has also sung in 'L'incoronazione di Poppea', 'Orontea', and 'Dido and Aeneas' under René Jacobs; 'Dafne' (Gagliano), 'L'Orfeo' (Monteverdi) and 'Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria' (Monteverdi) under Gabriel Garrido.
Her extraordinarily rewarding collaboration with the harpsichordist and organist Jean-Marc Aymes led to the founding of the Concerto Soave ensemble which specializes in Italian music of the early baroque period. It is a concerto in the original sense of the term, i.e. a rich instrumental palette (composed of harpsichord, organ, arch lute, viola da gamba, harp…) accompanying a solo singer.
It has appeared at many leading festivals of early music: Utrecht, Ambronay, Pontoise, Simiane-la-Rotonde, Semaine Sainte en Arles, and in Montreux, Lausanne, Marseille, and Paris (Cité de la Musique).