This is a recurring event: View all events in the series “Summer Sounds”
It has become necessary to cancel this event, due to unforeseen circumstances. We apologise for any disappointment and inconvenience, and hope to be able to reschedule this concert soon.
Civitas, City’s ensemble for early vocal music, performs medieval works by the two earliest female composers whose music has been transmitted with musical notation, at the beautiful local church of Holy Trinity Hoxton.
The concert begins with several hymns by Kassia, an aristocratic nun who wrote in Greek in ninth-century Constantinople (modern Istanbul). Her hymn for the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, which in the Byzantine tradition marks the beginning of the period of preparation for Lent, recalls not only the tax-collector from the parable in Gospel of Luke (18:9–14), but also the sinful woman who anointed the feet of Jesus (Luke 7:36). This will be followed by two of the hymns that Kassia wrote honouring the early Christian martyr Christina.
The ecstatic music of the twelfth-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) will be represented by a performance of her Ordo Virtutum ("Order of the Virtues"). In this sung allegorical drama, the German abbess launches an inquiring human soul on a journey during which she encounters not only personified virtues, but also the songless devil, who can only speak.
Programme:
- Kassia (ca. 810– ca. 865), Sticheron Idiomelon for Great Vespers on the Eve of the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee
- Kassia, Two Stichera Idiomela for St Christina
- Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), Ordo Virtutum
About Civitas and Alexander Lingas:
Civitas is City's student vocal ensemble devoted to the performance of the Early Music of Eastern and Western Europe, including both plainchant (Latin, Byzantine, and Slavic) and polyphony. The group is led by director Alexander Lingas, also known internationally as the founding director of the acclaimed vocal ensemble Cappella Romana.
Dr. Alexander Lingas is a Professor of Music at City, University of London, founder and Musical Director of the vocal ensemble Cappella Romana, and a Research Fellow of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge. His present work embraces historical study, ethnography, and performance. In 2018 His All-Holiness, Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, bestowed on him the title of Archon Mousikodidaskalos.
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