Newberry Consort Performs Music from Renaissance France April 5-7

This spring, join the Newberry Consort for a journey back in time to the 16th-century royal courts of five influential French monarchs. Le Jardin de Mélodies, directed by David Douglass, features a violin band, percussion, and renowned lutenists Paul O’Dette and Charles Weaver, along with a vocal consort led by the Consort’s Co-Artistic Director, Ellen Hargis. Performances will be held on April 5 in Chicago, April 6 in Hyde Park and April 7 in Evanston.

Le Jardin de Mélodies focuses on music that was popular among the kings of the Valois dynasty, along with tunes that were performed in the city and the countryside during their reign. This unique program brings together raucous dance music, ceremonial tunes, ballads for solo voice as well as polyphonic music for voices, all of which reveal the richness of the French Renaissance repertoire. The violin band will feature violins, violas, and bass violins. Percussionist Dan Meyers will play multiple instruments, including recorders, drums, tambourine, bagpipe, and pipe and tabor. O’Dette and Weaver will play a variety of plucked string instruments including Renaissance guitars, lutes, and citterns, which are metal-strung, flat-backed plucked instruments similar in shape to the modern mandolin.

David Douglass, co-artistic director of the Newberry Consort, first explored this music in the mid-1990s as director of The King’s Noyse, an ensemble that also included O’Dette and Hargis. At the time, Douglass partnered with musicologist Kate van Orden to delve into the voix de ville repertory (a term that later became vaudeville), which would have been performed by a violin band in the court of Charles IX in 1570s France. That project won the prestigious Noah Greenberg award from the American Musicological Society.

More than 20 years later, Douglass is eager to return to the same era in this program. “I think audiences will love getting a glimpse of what life was like both for the royals and the commoners in Renaissance France, and they’ll really enjoy both the elegant songs as well as the more rollicking dance tunes we’ve included,” he said.

This program will be presented in conjunction with the Newberry Library’s Center for Renaissance Studies, which will hold a symposium entitled “Medieval and Early Modern Dance in the Book” on April 5. That event will include lectures, a session with rare books, and a demonstration of Renaissance dance, accompanied by musicians of the Newberry Consort. The symposium is free and open to the public.

Performances of Le Jardin de Mélodies are April 5 at 8 p.m. at Newberry Library in Chicago, on April 6 at 8 p.m. at Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, and on April 7 at 3 p.m. at Galvin Recital Hall at Northwestern University in Evanston. A pre-concert chat will be held 30 minutes before each concert. Tickets range from $40 to $60. Student tickets are available for $5 at the door for the Saturday and Sunday performances (cash preferred).

PERFORMANCE DETAILS

Le Jardin de Mélodies: A Parisian Renaissance Entertainment

Friday, April 5, 2019 at 8 p.m.

Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St., Chicago

Tickets $50-$60

Saturday, April 6, 2019 at 8 p.m.

Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., Chicago

Tickets $40-$50. Student tickets $5 at the door.

Sunday, April 7, 2019 at 3 p.m.

Galvin Recital Hall, 70 Arts Circle Dr., Evanston

Tickets $40-$50. Student tickets $5 at the door.

Pre-concert lectures start 30 minutes before each performance.

About the Newberry Consort:

Directed by David Douglass, Newberry Musician-in-Residence, and early music diva Ellen Hargis, the Newberry Consort plumbs the Newberry Library’s vast music collection and assembles a star-studded roster of local and international artists to bring you world-class performances of music from the 13th to the 18th centuries…and occasionally beyond! Affiliated with the Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies, the Consort also serves as an ensemble-in-residence at Northwestern University. In addition to an annual concert series in Chicago, the Consort has an active touring schedule.