Seasonal favorites Joel Cohen and the Boston Camerata return to Union College to perform A Renaissance Christmas on Monday, Dec. 22, at 8 p.m. in Memorial Chapel.
This is the tenth annual appearance of the Camerata, hailed as “one of America's finest Early Music ensembles” by the Chicago Tribune.
A Renaissance Christmas presents a cross- section of music heard and performed in Europe from roughly 1470 to 1620 in celebration of the Christmas season. An astonishing juxtaposition of music of the church and home, of seriousness and wit, of spirituality and jest, runs through the Renaissance Christmas repertoire.
Founded in 1954, the Boston Camerata is an internationally celebrated performance company of singers and instrumentalists dedicated to bringing alive the music of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the early Baroque.
The ensemble was associated with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts until 1974. Music director Joel Cohen, a musician and musicologist, has led the Boston Camerata since 1968. Cohen studied composition at Harvard and spent two years in Paris as a student of Nadia Boulanger. He has taught and lectured at several American and European institutions, and his professional honors include Phi Beta Kappa, Bodky Prize, and Harvard's Signet Society Medal.
Cohen and the Camerata won the 1989 Grand Prix du Disque for their retelling of the medieval Tristan and Iseult legend on Erato Records. Their recordings have reached bestseller status and the group has gained widespread acceptance among the general public.
In past appearances, the Camerata has made full use of Memorial Chapel and its wonderful acoustics, with musicians wandering the hall and singing and playing from balconies.
Tickets, at $20 ($10 for students), are available in advance at the Schenectady Museum (518)382-7890 and at the door at 7 p.m. For more information, call 372-3651.