Early Music Now To Play a Tapestry of Music Saturday

Early Music Now presents Tapestry – Faces of a Woman, celebrating music by women or inspired by women who made a mark on 12th to 16th-century history. The Saturday evening performance at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church opens the 36th season for Early Music Now.

The Tapestry Vocal Ensemble based in Boston has been a frequent guest of Early Music Now. Lauris Monahan, one of the three co-founders of the group, will sing her last concert with the group before retiring to the West Coast. She will be joined by singers Cristi Catt, Deborah Rentz-Moore, and Daniela Tosic with Laura Jeppesen on vielle and rebec.

Early Music Now concerts often offer a deep dive into the music, history, and culture of a particular time and place. The evening will explore five complete scenarios from the 12th through 16th centuries. Each will blend music, occasional poetry, and stories that explore a specific place and time.

The medieval nun Hildegard von Bingen dominates the first scenario. A true polymath, Bingen published her spiritual visions, organized a series of convents, and wrote extensively about religion, botany, medicine, and other subjects. She communicated with popes, royalty and others of her time. Her musical compositions continue to be popular, especially among Christian mystics.

The next scenario explores the dominance of a faith tradition, Marian devotion, as Catholics in 14th century Spain and the Spanish New World celebrated Mary, Divine Mother, Queen of Heaven, and Queen of Angels, as central to their faith.

The troubadour tradition of 12th-century southern France reflected a largely secular world. Poems of love were featured as chansons. Beatrice de Dia, a noblewoman, contributed to the genre along with perhaps two dozen other women. Regardless of the gender of the poet, the texts celebrate sexual politics where women were willing to speak of both joys and displeasure with those relationships.

The exploits of Grace O’Malley, a 16th-century Irish woman thought to be a merchant pirate, have been featured in legends that may obscure the true story of her life. Anne Boleyn, 2nd wife of Henry VIII also contributed poetry and music to this turbulent time.

Central in the Jewish tradition, the Song of Solomon tells the story of Makeda, Queen of Sheba, who married King Solomon. An Old Testament chapter, the Song of Solomon has been characterized as an erotic poem celebrating sexual love. This central material inspired sacred and secular songs to the present day.

The evening’s five scenarios have one common thread: music inspired by the best of medieval and Renaissance choral traditions. Contemporary composers have contributed similar works, often written for Tapestry. Richard Dyer, writing for the Boston Globe observes, “The group is remarkable for the beauty of sound, exact tuning, and precision…an extraordinary blend, but the sound never dissolves into anonymity.” A critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer describes Tapestry as “an ensemble that plants haunting vibrations, old and new, in our ears.”

Many of the songs presented have been recorded as CDs by Tapestry: Song of Songs, Celestial Light, Sapphire Night, and Faces of a Woman.

The Tapestry concert begins at 5:00 p.m., Oct. 15 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (914 E. Knapp St., Milwaukee, 53202.) There will be a pre-concert lecture at 4:00 p.m. in the Great Hall. Masks are encouraged but not required at this venue. Tickets can be ordered at this link. Parking is available on the street. The nearby Lincoln Center for the Arts school parking lot is not available for this concert.

Immediately after this concert, Early Music Now has scheduled a fundraising event “Celebrating Women of Note: Thallis Drake and Laurie Monahan” in the Great Hall at Saint Paul’s. The founder of Early Music Now, Thallis Drake celebrates her 95th birthday this year.

The next Early Music Now concert features the Orlando Consort on Nov. 12. They will blend visuals of Renaissance art with the best of Renaissance music.