Five Boroughs Music Festival: Cantatas, Yesterday & Today
Free (pay-what-you-will; RSVP required)
- Raha Mirzadegan, soprano
- Lukas Papenfusscline, tenor
- Tsutomu William Copeland, violin
- Clay Zeller-Townson, bassoon
- Doug Balliett, viola da gamba
- Elliot Figg, harpsichord
Doug Balliett — Cantata for the First Sunday of Advent
Georg Philipp Telemann — Endlich wird die Stunde schlagen, TVW 1:440
Doug Balliett — Cantata for the Second Sunday of Advent
New York City's Five Boroughs Music Festival (5BMF) presents the Theotokos ensemble in Cantatas, Yesterday and Today on Thursday, December 7, 2023 at 7:30pm at St. Mary's Church. In its 5BMF debut, Theotokos performs old and new church music, linking the liturgical traditions of the Baroque with contemporary compositional voices.
One of the jewels of human achievement is the concept of "complete" church music: original music composed and assigned to every event in the church's liturgical year. This has been famously accomplished by Palestrina, J.S. Bach, and a handful of others; Telemann's Harmonischer Gottesdienst is a lesser-known complete cantata cycle, perfectly suited for a chamber ensemble like Theotokos. Doug Balliett, bassist, composer, and leader of Theotokos, is engaged in creating his own contemporary "complete" church music cycle, with cantata-masses for every event in the 3-year Catholic calendar. Cantatas: Yesterday and Today pairs two Telemann cantatas – those assigned to the first two weeks of Advent – with two newly-composed cantatas by Balliett.
About Theotokos
Theotokos is the living embodiment of a baroque church ensemble. In residence at St. Mary's Church on Grand Street on the lower east side of NYC, every week a new cantata is composed and performed by the group, based on and tightly linked with the liturgical readings assigned to that date. In addition, theologically relevant baroque and pre-baroque music is regularly performed, ranging from Palestrina to Telemann, early American church music, and beyond. Theotokos also runs a Gregorian Chant club, open to all, which regularly meets to chant mass and the divine office. In 2021 Theotokos began a fruitful collaboration with the Juilliard School Historical Performance program. Other guest performers have included Davóne Tines, Jean Rondeau, Myriam Rignol, Thomas Dunford, and William Christie.
https://www.dougballiett.nyc/theotokosAbout Raha Mirzadegan, soprano
About Doug Balliett, viola da gamba
About Elliot Figg, harpsichord
St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church (Saint Mary Grand)
440 Grand St.New York, New York 10002
United States