I'll be thanking you-oo-oo-oo*

So, just so you know, we are thankful all year long: thankful that we have audience members, both long-term and newly-found, who come to our playful-yet-virtuosic concerts like the November production of Pimpinone. We are thankful for the chance to present beautiful/humorous/melancholic music like the ‘Complaints’ concert that we performed in Austin last spring and in college Station in late October. We are thankful for the adventurous amateur and semi-pro musicians who joined us at the Texas Toot workshop last summer and this last weekend led by professionals from around the nation.

We are thankful for donors like the Fifth Age of Man Foundation, which will be sponsoring the upcoming Christmas concert (see deets below!), and we are thankful for donors who help to keep us going on a daily basis with contributions from $10 to $10,000!

We hope you all have a lovely, peaceful, heart-warming, multilicious Thanksgiving, and we hope to see you all at our upcoming Early Christmas concerts. We will have our new Christmas cd ready for you, gathered from our 2016 and 2017 Early Christmas concerts. For now, enjoy these audio teasers from our earlier Christmas CDs: Gaudete, Noël, Swete was the Songe, and Stella splendens.

Breaking news! We have a NEW Christmas CD!

Learn more —>

Photo credit: Kudos Kitchen by Renée

And now, I think I hear a pumpkin pie calling my name…
-Danny

*Curious about the title of this post? Here’s the reference: https://bit.ly/2Q8UvBi

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An Early Christmas

Friday, December 7, 2018, at  7:30 pm
St. John's United Methodist, 2140 Allandale Road
Saturday, December 8, 2018, at  7:30 pm
First English Lutheran Church, 3001 Whitis Avenue
Sunday, December 9, 2018, 3:00 pm
First Presbyterian Church, 8001 Mesa Drive, Austin, TX

Admission $30 general; $25 seniors (60+); $5 students (at the door only)
Tickets available in advance online or by cash, check, or credit card at the door.

Take advantage of preferred seating and other perks by sponsoring a concert!

For more information, call 512-377-6961 and leave a message,
or email info@early-music.org.

Join Texas Early Music Project for its annual multilicious feast of Christmas music through the ages. With sweet medieval lullabies and joyous English and French carols, magnificent motets from Germany, dulcet Celtic cradle-songs and exuberant folk-tunes, and more, we celebrate this season of expectation and rebirth, along with different cultures encompassing more than 700 years of humanity's hope, love, and joy.  TEMP puts its distinctive stamp on the intangible essence and passion of Christmas with arrangements for solo voices, small chorus, harps, violin, flute, mandolin, viols, and lute.

Brett Barnes, Cayla Cardiff, Jeffrey Jones-Ragona, David Lopez, Jenny Houghton, and Jenifer Thyssen are featured soloists, and acclaimed harpists Therese Honey and Elaine Barber are featured as special guests.

Join us for a splended and enriching program. With more than 700 years of creativity and beauty, this music is sure to delight your ears and warm your heart.

And you can use our new word: multilicous!

Click on the image above to buy tickets now!

How do you solve a problem like Vespetta?

TEMP’s Meredith Ruduski & Peter Walker in the roles of Vespetta and Pimpinone in 2012
(Photo by Zoe Weiss)

We had a fun and successful season-opener! Almost 2 weeks later and there are still ear-worms from the Alegría concert zinging through my head. Or is that my allergies? Hard to tell sometimes. Anyway, welcome to our Celebramus Season and welcome to the many new season subscribers—we’re glad to have you for our 20th anniversary season.

But, Vespetta, well: She’s something else! The heroine character from our upcoming Telemann opera concert is strong-willed, conniving, entertaining, obviously well-educated on a number of subjects, and makes Pimpinone’s heart go pitter-patter. He may be a nerdy bachelor with industrial strength pocket-protectors, but he has a few tricks up his sleeve as well. But, is this a match made in heaven, hell, or merely for the comedic intermezzi of 18th century Hamburg? Here’s a hint: the real title is Pimpinone, or The Unequal Marriage, or The Domineering Chambermaid! Telemann’s vocal music is singable and catchy and quite beautiful! See the full description below, but don’t miss Gitanjali Mathur and Peter Walker in the starring roles!

See you at the theatah!
-Danny

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How to Marry a millionaire (c. 1725)

Saturday, November 3, 2018, at  7:30 pm
and
Sunday, November 4, 2018, 3:00 pm
First Presbyterian Church, 8001 Mesa Drive, Austin, TX

Admission $30 general; $25 seniors (60+); $5 students (at the door only)
Tickets available in advance online or by cash, check, or credit card at the door.

Take advantage of preferred seating by purchasing Season Tickets by clicking the button below or at the venue door through November 4!

For more information, call 512-377-6961 and leave a message,
or email info@early-music.org.

Georg Philipp Telemann’s short comic opera Pimpinone: The Unequal Marriage Between Vespetta and Pimpinone or The Domineering Chambermaid, written in 1725, is hilarious, touching, prophetic, and beautiful.

The interplay between the two characters, Vespetta and Pimpinone, is hilarious both in the witty dialogues and duets and in the acrobatic arias; the more intimate arias in which each separately explores inner fears and desires are tender and heartfelt. How can an opera be prophetic, one might ask? In at least two ways, actually: First, one of Pimpinone’s songs foreshadows Papageno’s “Pa, pa, pa, Papagena” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, written 66 years later. It uses the one syllable motive “Pim, pim, pim…” The second way the opera is prophetic is the feminization of his own name, “Pimpinona.” Mozart knew a clever idea when he heard it!

The subtitle gives an idea of the nature of the plot. It is a story that has been told often in theater, opera, movies, and television sit-coms: Pimpinone is a wealthy but homely bachelor while Vespetta is a clever and attractive chambermaid looking for a rich boss (soon-to-be-husband.) Guess who marries whom and guess who is in control of the marriage! The arias expertly define the personalities of the characters: Vespetta’s arias are flirty and saucy and become more complex as her station in life elevates. Pimpinone’s arias are tender and heartfelt, yet also very funny. The orchestral music is delightfully sophisticated with brilliantly written imitations of vocal lines and stunningly complimentary countermelodies.

Early music stars from around the USA join TEMP’s Austin regulars for this entertaining and virtuosic music. TEMP core-member Gitanjali Mathur (soprano) sings the role of Vespetta and New York’s Peter Walker (baritone) portrays the put-upon title character in this performance, set in current times and fully staged, and with supertitles for easy comprehension of the comedy and pathos. The accompanying period-instrument ensemble includes violinists Anna Griffis (Boston) and Bruce Colson (Austin), violist Bruce Williams (Austin), and cellist Jane Leggiero (Cleveland), Scott Horton (theorbo), and Austin newcomer Donald Livingston on harpsichord. We will also feature a couple of Telemann’s fantasies for solo flute, performed by traverso master Marcus McGuff.

Join us for intimate, expressive, and comedic chamber music at its most beautiful and most entertaining!

Click on the image above to buy tickets now!

Celebramus...

...We're almost legal!

It has been brought to my attention, dear readers, that I haven't written a blog for April yet, so let me rectify that! Oh wait, maybe I mean May. Oops, I definitely mean June. What? July, too? Hmmm...see, I have this problem with time... So, since I can't fill in all the blank spaces between mid-March and early August, let me just thank everyone for support for our Amplify Austin campagin and for our April and May concerts. They were fun and successful, and the Complaints concert even garnered Critics Table nominations, along with our infamous It's About Time concert. (By the way, Jenifer Thyssen and Bruce Colson won awards for TEMP concerts at the ceremony—congratulations to them!) 

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Texas Toot Faculty 2018

Let's see, what else has happened? The early June Texas Toot Early Music Workshop at Concordia was successful and the Amherst Early Music Workshop, which took up almost all of July, was huge, successful, and exhausting/ exhilarating. Several current and past TEMP members took part in the Amherst workshop as faculty and staff and it seemed like old home month. 

Ok, that's definitely all that's happened in the last ... oh, there's more, you say? You're right! There have been two additions to the TEMP family! Frequent guest and may-as-well-move-here mezzo, Erin Calata, and husband, Dom, welcomed a baby boy, Dylan, in June! AND local wonder and TEMP Operations Coordinator, Meredith Ruduski, and husband, Stephen, are now the proud parents of young Stephen William Ruduski, born at the end of July! Congratulations and wishes for the occasional full-night's sleep to all the parents! 

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Of course I won't end this post until I mention the upcoming season (our 20th!) and the accompanying 20 for 20 fundraiser! We are, indeed, trying to raise an extra $20K to help create the foundation for 20 *more* years for TEMP. As music becomes increasingly important in our lives and necessary for our culture, we want TEMP to be here for a very long time. In our 20th Anniversary Season, we’ll reflect on our journey through time as an ensemble, giving a nod or two to our 1998-1999 season, while looking to the future and to even more adventurous projects. 

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TEMP Then...

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TEMP Now...

Our 20th season has Alegría (joy), comedy, remarkable Christmas music, poignant and evocative Celtic music, amazing Tudor music, and heart-stopping chant by Hildegard von Bingen! Season subscriptions are already on sale and there's at least 6 reasons to join us as a subscriber! Get your season subscriptions now! Single tickets are also available online by clicking on the tickets buttons on the 2018-2019 Season page!

More details in the next few weeks! No, really!

-Danny

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For more information, call 512-377-6961 and leave a message, or email info@early-music.org.