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New Release!
April 2011
From Focus Records/IUMusic:

Oy Hasemos Fiesta
Music from 16th century Guatamala for voices and winds
On CD Baby

Complete liner notes

The following samples are in MP3 format. Click to open a new window to play the track.

Primeros Tonos

Oy hasemos fiesta todas

Maria de solo un buelo

Pabanilla

Dominus regnavit

Ensemble Lipzodes is a unique group that combines voice, shawms, dulcians, recorders, and percussion to bring to life the rarely performed music of 16th century Guatemala. In addition to this singular repertoire, the ensemble also explores new directions in early music utilizing voices and winds.

Missa Ave Virgo Sanctissima
Géry de Ghersem (c.1572-1630)

Concert:
April 3rd, 2012, at 7:30 pm, Iglesia la Compañia, Quito, Ecuador
April 4th, 2012, at 7:30 pm, Teatro Nacional Sucre, Quito, Ecuador

Masterclass:
April 4th, 2012, from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, Teatro Variedades, Quito, Ecuador

Ecuador has a long tradition of performing European music in religious ceremony, which started with a Flemish Franciscan order that came to Quito in 1535.

Originally from Tournai, Géry de Ghersem lived and sang at the court of Phillip II in Madrid when he was eight and lived there until about the age of thirty when he returned to Tournai and Brussels. While in Madrid he studied with Philippe Rogier and also published Rogier's masses after his death.

We are very pleased to perform Ghersem's Missa Ave virgo sanctissima from 1598 which is found in La Catedral de Quito, that was completed in 1567. This opus is the only work of Ghersem's to survive in its entirety, and in his will he requested a number of his compositions to be sent to the Americas. We hope that more of his works will be found. This seven-part mass is based on a motet by Francisco Guerrero. We sincerely thank Jeronimo Boza for bringing this mass to our attention.

Ensemble Lipzodes came together in 2004 in Bloomington, Indiana. Its members were students completing degrees in the Early Music Institute and the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. The ensemble combines voice, shawms, dulcians, recorders, and percussion to bring to life the rarely performed music of 16th century Guatemala. In addition to this singular repertoire, the ensemble also explores new directions in early music utilizing voices and winds.

In 2004, Lipzodes was a finalist in Early Music America's Renaissance and Medieval Performance Competition, and in 2006 the ensemble was selected as a winner in the Ninth Competition in Performance of Music from Spain and Latin America. The ensemble has performed throughout the United States and in Latin America, featured at festivals and series such as the Bloomington Early Music Festival, the Chicago Latino Music Festival, the Boston Early Music Fringe Festival, and the National Gallery of Art Concert Series. In 2007 they were featured on a CD recording by the University of North Texas, Christmas Vespers in Cusco: Music from an Incan Baroque City, with the University of North Texas Collegium Singers and Instrumentalists. Oy hasemos fiesta is their first CD release as an ensemble with Focus Records.

The ensemble's unique name comes from a creative misinterpretation of the writing on the flyleaf of MS 1, Santa Eulalia, from the Guatemalan Music Manuscripts (printed on the CD label of our recording). What at first glance seems to say "Lipzodes" actually is the first part of a passage which continues further: "LibRodeSancta olaya Puyumatlan. Este libro de canto hize yo francş de Leon maestro deste pueblo de sancta olaya. hizelo En el ańo De mill y quinientos y ochenta y dos annos. Francş De Leon.." In an orthographic transformation typical of the region, the letters "b" and "p" became exchanged, and the "R" lost its vertical bar, to become what appeared to be a Z.