by Daniel Hathaway
In their most recent appearance at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Peter Phillips’ renowned British vocal ensemble, Tallis Scholars, dedicated a program of sacred Renaissance music — with a couple of modern insertions — to those who lost their lives in the First World War from 1914 to 1918.
by Jarrett Hoffman
“The war to end all wars” — if only that were true. Known as simply the World War up until the late 1930s, the international disaster we now call WWI came to an armistice a century ago, after claiming over 16 million lives.
A concert this week at the Cleveland Museum of Art will commemorate those lost in that conflict. Embarking on their 71st tour to North America, director Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars — the British vocal ensemble whose specialty is sacred music of the Renaissance — will bring “War and Peace” to Gartner Auditorium on Friday, April 13 at 7:30 pm, as part of the Museum’s Performing Arts Series.
L’Homme Armé (“The Armed Man”), a secular song that was popular in Renaissance France, will open Friday’s concert. “It’s a real battle cry,” Peter Phillips said in a phone call from London. “We all go for it — even I sing in it. That’s a pretty noisy start.”
by Nicholas Jones
In the dark days of December, the seasonal need for light and hope seems to unite the faithful, the lapsed, the secular and even the skeptical in a desire for choral music. Tallis Scholars, the distinguished English choir, recently brought a program of great Renaissance vocal works to the Cleveland Museum of Art, singing with enough soul and skill to light us at least through the impending solstice. [Read more…]
This week the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts series will present three musically diverse concerts in Gartner Auditorium.
On Thursday, December 11 at 7:30 pm, The Tallis Scholars make their CMA debut with a program of Renaissance choral music by William Byrd, Josquin des Prez, and Edmund Turges. Director Peter Phillips founded The Tallis Scholars in 1973. Through recordings and concert performances, the ensemble has established itself as the leading exponent of Renaissance sacred music throughout the world. Phillips has worked with the group to create, through good tuning and blend, the purity and clarity of sound that he feels best serves the Renaissance repertoire, allowing every detail of the musical lines to be heard. It is this resulting beauty of sound for which The Tallis Scholars has become so widely renowned.