Joy, Light, & Everything Pumpkin Spice

Welp, we all know what’s about to happen, right? I’m gonna make a reference to the artificial jet lag created by the time change and that I kinda like it. And then I’m gonna say something like “it must be that time of year for another sweet potato curry, washed down with a pumpkin stout, and then chased by a slice of pumpkin cheesecake” or somesuch.

So let’s just cut to the chase, shall we?

Time’s a’wastin’ because I need to be finalizing the music for our Joy and Light concert in December and preparing for the Fall Texas Toot workshop in East Texas and trying to make time to watch our London City Limits concert video because we spent a lot of time on the concert and the audio/video editing and it’s pretty danged good! You should watch it. Details are on our website.

So, you see, rather than go on and on about not being able to find any pumpkin spice contact lens solution, I’m gonna get back to work! And think about the pumpkin spice ice cream I might have during a break.

See details about about our upcoming Joy and Light concert below!

And Happy Thanksgiving!
–Danny

P.S. Don’t forget: TEMP CDs make great holiday gifts! Purchase CDs at our concert venue or order from our Recordings page!

---

Joy and Light: Delights of the Season

Saturday, December 9, 2023 at  7:30 pm
&
Sunday, December 10, 2023, 3:00 pm
Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2111 Alexander Avenue

Hosted by Arts on Alexander on the campus of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 
2111 Alexander Ave, Austin, TX 78722.
Visit the Arts on Alexander 2023-2024 events on the AoA website.

Admission $35 general; $30 seniors (60+); $5 students with ID
Tickets available in advance online or by cash, check, or credit card at the door.

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 diverse holiday music through the ages. Cultures across the centuries have celebrated this season of expectation and rebirth, and we are contributing our share with medieval chant and joyous carols, magnificent motets, sweet Celtic songs, exuberant folk-tunes, and more.

 Much of the music for this concert comes from Southern Europe, including folk tunes from France that have remained popular through modern times as well as newly written pieces based on French chant. The enchanting Sephardic songs that we have chosen for the Chanukah section come from Turkey and Morocco. In addition, we will present music by the “newly discovered” Vicente Lusitano, a mixed-race Portuguese composer. Active in the 16th century, Lusitano has been described as the first published Black composer.

 In addition to the haunting motet for 5 voices by Lusitano, we have created a “medley” on the popular 14th-century tune In dulci jubilo (also known to modern carolers as Good Christian Men, Rejoice), using settings by different composers of the German Renaissance and Baroque: Michael Praetorius, Hieronymus Praetorius, and Dietrich Buxtehude. The settings range from verses for 2 parts, 3 parts, and so on, up to 12 different parts.

 The British Isles are represented by a variety of popular ballads and folk songs from England and Scotland, all penned by that long-lived composer, Anonymous. As usual, there will be a few pieces composed and arranged in the last few years using some of the styles of Medieval and Baroque repertoire.

 Tim O’Brien, David Lopez, Cayla Cardiff, Erin Calata, Page Stephens, Jeffrey Jones-Ragona, Jenny Houghton, Ryland Angel, Adrienne Pedrotti Bingamon, and Jenifer Thyssen are among the featured soloists, and we are happy to have both acclaimed harpist Therese Honey and kantele virtuoso Viktoria Nizhnik featured in our small orchestra.

 Join Texas Early Music Project for a splendid and enriching evening of music. Encompassing 700 years of festive creativity and beauty, this music is sure to delight your ears and warm your heart. We coined a new word to describe the concert: multilicious!

Click on the image above to buy tickets now!

The sound of one hand clapping for a series of realizations

Ya know, it’s hard to put one past me. I’m very observant. I’ve noticed a few things. Like, not too long ago, I noticed they were playing the World Series. Clue A. And then I noticed that all my clocks were wrong. Clue 2. And then, as I was shivering in my apartment at teatime, I noticed I was having some very good pumpkin spice tea to go along with my pumpkin bread and realized with a premonition-like chill that I was going to have some butternut squash dal and curry for supper and that I was going to wash it down with pumpkin stout. I think those count for Clues 3 and D. Maybe E, too.

“Obviously,” I said assuredly, “it’s my favorite time of the year and that means we must have our annual Christmas/Holiday concert coming up soon.”

So check out the blurb below (after you check out the video and graphics that Allison comes up with to illustrate this) and we’ll see you at the grocery store, standing in line to buy Thanksgiving sustenance, and then we’ll see you at An Early Christmas in December!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and see you at the concerts in December!
-Danny

P.S.: There is no truth to the rumor that I use pumpkin spice contact lens solutions. That is absurd. The stores have been out of that for months. Maybe next year....

---

An Early Christmas

Saturday, December 10, 2022 at  7:30 pm
&
Sunday, December 11, 2022, 3:00 pm
Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2111 Alexander Avenue

Hosted by Arts on Alexander on the campus of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 
2111 Alexander Ave, Austin, TX 78722.
Visit the Arts on Alexander 2022-2023 events on the AoA website.

Admission $35 general; $30 seniors (60+); $5 students with ID
Tickets available in advance online or by cash, check, or credit card at the door.

Take advantage of preferred seating and other perks by buying season tickets!

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 diverse holiday music through the ages. Cultures across the centuries have celebrated this season of expectation and rebirth, and we are contributing our share with medieval chant and joyous carols, magnificent motets, lively Celtic songs, exuberant folk-tunes, and more.

Most of the music for this concert comes from Northern Europe and the British Isles. We’ve chosen pieces from Medieval England and France that glimmer with the transparency of the styles of the period. Renaissance Netherlands, England, and France give us both glorious polyphonic and appealing chordal ambiance. A little Baroque music from France and England will leave us with memorable (and recognizable) tunes. Although several of the pieces were written by the long-lived Anonymous, some composers of note are Praetorius, Scheidt, Sweelinck, and the “newly discovered” Vicente Lusitano, a mixed-race Portuguese composer. Active in the 16th century, Lusitano has been described as the first published Black composer.

In addition to the haunting motet for 5 voices by Lusitano, we have created a “medley” on the popular 14th-century tune Resonet in laudibus (also known as Joseph lieber, Joseph mein), using music by different composers of the German and Polish Renaissance for each verse. This unique, brand-new arrangement is for full choir and our small Renaissance orchestra. It is remarkable to hear how composers who worked in geographic and temporal proximity to each other set the different verses and sections.

As usual, there will be a few pieces composed and arranged in the last few years using some of the styles of Medieval and Baroque repertoire, and we will be presenting a short set of traditional and Sephardic music for the Chanukah celebration.

Tim O’Brien, Joel Nesvadba, Cayla Cardiff, Jeffrey Jones-Ragona, Jenny Houghton, Ryland Angel, Adrienne Pedrotti Bingamon, and Jenifer Thyssen are among the featured soloists, and we are happy to have both acclaimed harpist Therese Honey and kantele virtuoso Viktoria Nizhnik featured in our small orchestra.

Join Texas Early Music Project for a splendid and enriching evening of music. Encompassing 700 years of festive creativity and beauty, this music is sure to delight your ears and warm your heart.
And you can use our new word, multilicious!

Click on the image above to buy tickets now!

Did you enjoy this post? Give us a “like” below, leave a comment, and/or share with friends!

On the Fourth Day of Early Christmas … the history of a famous carol!

So there are these carols that many of us have sung since grade school—well, at least back in the old days when we sang them in school—and they are evocative of Dickensian times and visualizations fostered by viewings of many versions of “A Christmas Carol” and Scrooge and Tiny Tim, et al.; of course we didn’t really wonder about the true beginnings of these songs. (By the way, here’s a first: I’ve got a special gift for the first person to correctly name my first solo in school; it was in the 6th-grade Christmas concert. There are those who think I’ve gone downhill since then…)

“Good Christian Men, Rejoice” began as In dulce jubilo, which was taught to the mystic Seuse or Suso by angels in the 14th century. It went through some variations in the 15th and 16th centuries before Michael Praetorius made several settings of it as did many of the other leading composers. The harmonization that is commonly used in hymnals is John Stainer’s (19th century) based on the tune that is found in the Piae Cantiones (Finland, 1582), which happens to be the same source for the Gaudete from Day 3 of our journal.

And why am I mentioning this at all? Because TEMP performs a unique arrangement of In dulci jubilo that no one else anywhere does—as far as I know! Two different imitative settings by Michael Praetorius, one instrumental and one vocal—both are virtuosic—followed by a verse by him in chorale style for four voices and then one for three voices and instruments set by Buxtehude. The fourth verse is a massive 8-voice setting by Hieronymus Praetorius with rich textures and subtle harmonic surprises; we then return to the graceful Buxtehude setting for the ‘coda.' Here is an excerpt from the 8-voice setting from our CD Swete was the Songe.

And then Tiny Tim says, “God bless us, everyone!” Ok, not really. After that 7 minutes of musical calisthenics, we move to the Lowlands for…well, we’ll talk about that tomorrow!

That is all. As you were.
See you in 9-11 days, depending on which concert you come to!

Click to buy tickets for our Christmas concerts on Dec. 11, 12, & 13.

Earworm / ver de l'épi / Oorwurm / Ohrwurm

© Bob Eckstein, The New Yorker, 6/1/15

Still recovering from the exciting Medieval Pilgrimage concert (by which I mean finishing up my taxes, researching/working on music for the Christmas and Opera concerts and preparations for the upcoming Fall Texas Toot and the TEMP road trip to College Station on November 8 for a short version of September's Convivencia concert) and still having constant, but pleasant, earworms from last weekend's concert. Last night's earworm was the sinuous, interweaving melisma that Cayla and Erin sang at the end of each of the phrases of their duet. Today's is the refrain (again) from Los set goyts and the traded motifs from the duet that Nina and Jenny sang. I'm not complaining, mind you . . . I love it! I hope that you had similarly pleasing earworms!

Thanks to our special guests, our core and quasi-newbie singers and the band—and also to the audience who came to our new venue at St John's Episcopal and the audience who came to one of our "homes" (I think that pretty much covers everyone, right?) and especially our CD winner, Michael Praetorius. He's looking pretty good at almost 400. (You had to be there...)

Thanks to Robert Faires for his kind words (see the hard-copy version of the Austin Chronicle from the ides of October) and special thanks to the next Ohrwurm, whatever it might be...
And thanks for the oncoming Fall, which means that pumpkin *everything* can't be far behind!

View fullsize

by Robert Faires, Austin Chronicle, 10/16/15

We hope to see you at An Early Christmas, Dec. 11, 12, or 13!  Click on the image below for tickets or visit our Single Tickets page. 

-Danny