{"source_url": "https://vancouversun.com", "url": "https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/music/classical-music-bringing-medieval-era-music-to-a-new-decade", "title": "Classical music: Bringing medieval-era music to a new decade", "top_image": "https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/253584355-bagby_1-w.jpg", "meta_img": "https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/253584355-bagby_1-w.jpg", "images": ["https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/253584355-bagby_1-w.jpg", "https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/253584355-bagby_1-w.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=840&h=630&crop=1", "https://s2.wp.com/wp-content/themes/vip/postmedia-theme-broadsheet/images/common/logo-postmedia.png", "https://pixel.wp.com/b.gif?v=noscript", "data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe/WZNAAAADklEQVR42mNkgAJGDAYAAFEABCaLYqoAAAAASUVORK5CYII=", "https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/253584347-bagby02-s.jpg?quality=55&strip=all&w=640", "https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/indochino_logo_gray_120x60.gif", "https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/logo-vancouver1.png?resize=120,120", "https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/0102-yola_davidmcclisterphoto-2757-w.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=150", "https://api.pymx5.com/v1/sites/track?event_type=PAGE_VIEW&noscript=1"], "movies": [], "text": "Charms, Riddles & Elegies\n\nWhen: 7:30 pm., Jan. 10\n\nWhere: Christ Church Cathedral, 690 Burrard St.\n\nBeowulf: The Epic in Performance with Benjamin Bagby\n\nWhen: 7:30 p.m., Jan. 11\n\nWhere: Vancouver Playhouse, 600 Hamilton St.\n\nTickets and info:earlymusic.bc.ca\n\nEarly Music Vancouver\u2019s season has included several projects showcasing pioneers of the early music movement. Harpsichordist Ton Koopman visited for an important recital in the fall; so did cornetto player Bruce Dickey, who led a glorious performance of Venetian music for a sold-out crowd at the Chan Centre right before Christmas.\n\nThe new year starts up with a visit by the celebrated Benjamin Bagby and his Sequentia Ensemble. It\u2019s a bold two-concert initiative featuring a mixed program of medieval music on Jan. 10 at the neo-medieval Christ Church Cathedral and then Bagby\u2019s remarkable solo performance of Beowulf the following night at the Vancouver Playhouse.\n\nBagby, who turns 70 in February, hails from the American Midwest but has enjoyed a truly international career, including years teaching at the Sorbonne. In Basel in 1977 he and singer Barbara Thornton (his late wife) founded the Sequentia Ensemble. Teaching, touring and recording made Sequentia the most renowned ensemble devoted to medieval music. It has recorded a remarkable swath of materials ranging over centuries and from diverse traditions.\n\n\u201cMedieval\u201d music used to be viewed as a starting point in the \u201cevolution\u201d of western music. No longer. Thanks in part to scholar/performers like Bagby, who enthusiastically explore materials once thought peripheral to the mainstream of musical development, we are far more aware that the musical traditions of the medieval era were pluralistic and bewilderingly diverse.\n\nThough Bagby is renowned as a scholar, he and his cohort have never been cloistered inhabitants of the ivory tower. On the contrary, they have performed everywhere in projects that included both live performance and recording. (Sound a bit like a medieval rock band? I wouldn\u2019t dismiss the obvious similarities.)\n\nSequentia\u2019s new show Charms, Riddles and Elegies of the Medieval Northlands will be given its Canadian premiere at the cathedral. Performers Bagby, Stef Conner, Hannah Marti and Norbert Rodenkirchen have curated a tapestry of materials. They promise: \u201cEach of these songs is a glimpse into another time far from ours, and into the souls of poets, warriors, valkyries and seeresses, bards and philosophers, whose creations were the first to be written down in English and other Germanic languages.\u201d\n\nIf Charms, Riddles and Elegies is anything like the group\u2019s Fragments for the End of Time, heard here six years ago, listeners are in for a performance of remarkable diversity and power. For me, the conclusion of that production, an excerpt from a 10h-century Icelandic Edda, was one of those transcendent moments where a concert hall evaporates into time and space.\n\nBagby\u2019s solo telling of the Beowulf saga is his signature project. The Playhouse is a far cry from a cramped, smoky Anglo-Saxon mead hall and there will be the very 21st-century intrusion of video supertitles. Yet the core of the Beowulf experience is one scop (a \u201csinger of tales\u201d), one harp and a compelling story.\n\n\u201cIn the course of the story the vocalist may move imperceptibly or radically between true speech, heightened speech, speech-like song, and true song,\u201d Bagby writes in his program note. \u201cThe instrument acts as a constant point of reference, a friend and fellow-performer, a symbol of the scop and his almost magical role in the community of listeners.\u201d\n\nRelated\n\nCLICK HERE to report a typo.\n\nIs there more to this story? We\u2019d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Email vantips@postmedia.com.", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": [""], "tags": ["Retail", "Garden Collection", "Spring Arts Preview", "Art Seen", "We have Vancouver's classical music scene covered here", "Economy Next", "Wine Country", "Education", "Salut!", "The Vancouver concert scene", "Videos"], "authors": ["Updated", "January"], "publish_date": "Wed Jan  1 18:00:04 2020", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "The new year starts up with a visit by the celebrated Benjamin Bagby and his Sequentia Ensemble in a bold two-concert initiative.", "meta_lang": "en", "meta_favicon": "https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/65a4d89c994dadfbdfbf531bd11e514b?s=32", "meta_data": {"robots": "noarchive", "msvalidate.01": "915AE10930FFCE1EFBB9D7838CE66DE7", "description": "The new year starts up with a visit by the celebrated Benjamin Bagby and his Sequentia Ensemble in a bold two-concert initiative", "news_keywords": "medieval music, classical music, benjamin bagby, sequentia ensemble, beowulf, barbara thornton", "google-site-verification": "Fh4c9YVMW7SlW7lZ_NFatG04YvMg1x3MId7GI_2zAkI", "generator": "WordPress.com", "og": {"type": "article", "title": "Classical music: Bringing medieval-era music to a new decade", "url": "https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/music/classical-music-bringing-medieval-era-music-to-a-new-decade", "description": "The new year starts up with a visit by the celebrated Benjamin Bagby and his Sequentia Ensemble in a bold two-concert initiative", "site_name": "Vancouver Sun", "image": {"identifier": "https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/253584355-bagby_1-w.jpg", "secure_url": "https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/253584347-bagby02-s.jpg", "width": 700, "height": 700}, "locale": "en_US"}, "article": {"published_time": "2020-01-01T18:00:04+00:00", "modified_time": "2020-01-01T18:00:05+00:00", "publisher": "https://www.facebook.com/Vancouversun"}, "twitter": {"site": "@vancouversun", "text": {"title": "Classical music: Bringing medieval-era music to a new decade"}, "image": "https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/253584355-bagby_1-w.jpg", "card": "summary_large_image", "title": "Classical music, Vancouver: Bringing medieval-era music to a new year", "description": "The new year starts up with a visit by the celebrated Benjamin Bagby and his Sequentia Ensemble in a bold two-concert initiative."}, "stats-full-init": "0.022", "stats-postmedia_theme_pre_initialize": "0.000", "stats-initialize": "0.020", "stats-postmedia_theme_post_initialize": "0.002", "stats-vip_load_plugins": "0.004", "stats-load_plugins": "0.014", "stats-register_widgets": "0.000", "fb": {"pages": 273805206181, "app_id": 375057209234363, "page_id": "41743dd369ff9d9d763282ea7e2cd33e", "admins": 100002625504753}, "ia": {"markup_url": "https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/music/classical-music-bringing-medieval-era-music-to-a-new-decade?ia_markup=1"}, "ROBOTS": "NOARCHIVE", "sailthru.date": "2020-01-01 10:00:04", "sailthru.title": "Classical music: Bringing medieval-era music to a new decade", "sailthru.tags": "brand-vancouversun, category-music, Vancouver concert scene, Vancouver's classical music scene, Vancouver Playhouse, medieval music, musical development, early music movement, compelling story, Bagby's remarkable solo performance, CLICK HERE, important recital, Music Vancouver's season, speech-like song, Canadian premiere, harpsichordist Ton Koopman, comprehensive event listings, vocalist, program note, singer Barbara Thornton, Bagby's solo telling", "sailthru.description": "The new year starts up with a visit by the celebrated Benjamin Bagby and his Sequentia Ensemble in a bold two-concert initiative", "sailthru.image.full": "https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/253584355-bagby_1-w.jpg", "sailthru.image.thumb": "https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/253584355-bagby_1-w.jpg", "vf": {"unique_id": "b80d3a60-2bfb-4e4d-a696-67f1875b68cb"}, "application-name": "Vancouver Sun", "msapplication-window": "width=device-width;height=device-height", "msapplication-tooltip": "Vancouver News, Top Stories, Breaking Headlines & Videos", "msapplication-task": "name=Subscribe;action-uri=https://vancouversun.com/feed;icon-uri=https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/65a4d89c994dadfbdfbf531bd11e514b?s=16"}, "canonical_link": "https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/music/classical-music-bringing-medieval-era-music-to-a-new-decade"}