Cantemus Singers to perform Good Queen Bess concert in the Beach this Saturday
When the word “Elizabethan” is used in reference to music, one almost automatically thinks of the fun and accessible madrigals and dance music that were largely from the end of the reign.
However, her life began in a period when music was very different. And from her childhood, eventual coronation, and through to her maturity, momentous changes entirely changed the musical landscape.
Cantemus Singers invites music lovers to attend its concerts on April 25 and 26 concerts Good Queen Bess slated for the Beach and downtown Toronto respectively.
The Singers will present selections illustrating the shifting tides of vocal music during the Elizabethan times.
The concert starts with the pre-Reformation period when, as a child, Elizabeth undoubtedly heard Thomas Tallis’s monumental Missa Salve Intemerata, composed in the late medieval style of counterpoint. The Singers will then sample works by relatively unknown composers of the mid-16th century – including Taverner’s Christe Jesu, Pastor Bone, Tye’s joyful Omnes Gentes and the serene Lamentations of Jeremiah for Holy Week by Robert White.
The program is rounded with a collection of spritely end-of-century madrigals for springtime by Byrd, Morley and Tomkins. Fa-la-la’s galore.
The concerts are on April 25 at 7:30 p.m. at St. Aidan’s Anglican Church in the Beach, Silver Birch Avenue at Queen Street East; and on April 26 at 3 p.m. at The Church of the Holy Trinity (Eaton Centre).
Tickets are $35, with children under 12 free. Tickets are available at the door; reserved for pick-up by calling 416-578-6602; or ordered online via Eventbrite at www.cantemus.ca.
