ensemble lipzodes -- projects

What do we offer?
Presentation formats include the following:

Ensemble Lipzodes' full lineup of 8 musicians (four instrumentalists and four singers). The group is based in Bloomington, Indiana, USA.
The 5 core members of Ensemble Lipzodes (four instrumentalists and one singer/percussionist), which would be available to perform with a chamber choir from the presenter's area. This would include advance preparation by Ensemble Lipzodes of the score materials, as well as rehearsals and coaching provided by members of the ensemble for the combined choir. Ensemble Lipzodes would provide a soloist for most vocal pieces, though there would be an opportunity for the resident ensemble's singers to perform a number of solo/duet passages.

In addition to concert performances, the members of Ensemble Lipzodes are also available to offer the following during the residency period:

Coachings and private lessons in the following: recorder, baroque oboe, shawm, dulcian, historical bassoon and voice
Coaching in Spanish and other historical languages
Master classes for chamber ensembles: vocal / winds only, repertoire from the 15th to the 18th centuries
Demo/lectures or workshops in Gregorian Chant, Medieval, Renaissance, and Colonial vocal music (for ensembles or soloists)

Lipzodes' program allows for a flexible presentation, with the opportunity for local ensembles to enjoy this unique repertoire, as well as a listening experience that is sure to fascinate as well as delight the senses.

Our Concert Programs
Ensemble Lipzodes invites presenters and festivals to choose from a number of presentation formats for Lipzodes' programs.

Music from 16th century Guatemala
Lipzodes' original program of music from the Lilly Library Manuscripts
Novenas for Winds
Spanish Renaissance Christmas Music
Call, Court and Casbah:
Music from Muslim and Jewish Spain in Sefarad and the Exile
The period often referred to as la convivencia (broadly speaking, 711 to 1492 C.E.) is perhaps the most often associated with a fruitful development and propagation of Spanish Judeo-Muslim (and Christian) culture, scholarship and arts. However, it would be remiss to neglect the historical (and ongoing) reverberations of this unique cultural period. The present program of music from Muslim and Jewish Spain will highlight the various ways in which the musical forms and repertories of the three religions coexisted and drew from one another, in Spain during the period of coexistence up to 1492, and afterwards in Morocco, the Balkans, Turkey -- and even across the Atlantic Ocean in the lands that until 1492 were non plus ultra.
Travels on paper and in sound
A program of music about distant lands and travels from ca. 1400-1700, first presented at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Venice, Shakespeare and the Bassano Family
This semi-theatrical work is inspired by Shakespeare and the Bassano family's trip to Venice at the end of 1593. It incorporates both the Merchant of Venice and the music that the Bassano family wrote in Italy and England.
St. Matthew Passion and Tenebrae Responsories: A Meditation on the Betrayal of Jesus in Eleven Scenes (Thomas Luis de Victoria)
Tomas Luis de Victoria (c. 1548 - 1611) was the most famous composer in Spain in the sixteenth century and one of the most important composers of the Counter-Reformation. 2011 will mark the 400th anniversary of his death and Ensemble Lipzodes intends to celebrate this anniversary offering an unusual program of music. Ensemble Lipzodes performs Victoria's St. Matthew Passion with a double choir and orchestra of sackbuts, shawms and viola da gamba.
Eighteen Villancicos from the Jesús Sánchez Garza Collection
Cathedral chapel masters in colonial Mexico, as in other parts of Latin America, were required to compose several new villancicos on an annual basis, resulting in the large numbers of villancicos found in music manuscript collections from this time. The largest body of Mexican colonial repertoire recovered thus far has come from Puebla. Colección Jesús Sánchez Garza, originating at Puebla's Convento de la Santísima Trinidad, contains 137 villancicos, the largest number of unpublished villancicos originating in Mexico. The collection is housed at Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación e Información Musical "Carlos Chávez" (CENIDIM), in Mexico City. Although an unpublished 1988 catalog of the Collection is available for researchers, and publication of a new catalog appears to be forthcoming, research on this collection has continued to be sporadic over the last several decades and fewer than twenty villancicos from this significant collection have been transcribed and published.
Missa Ave Virgo Sanctissima by Géry de Ghersem (c.1572-1630)
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.

About our Programs
Much of the music Ensemble Lipzodes performs for our programs is taken from a collection of early 16th century Guatemalan manuscripts held in the Lilly Library of Indiana University, Bloomington. The music's provenance is from the state of Huehuetenango, which is located in the northwest corner of Guatemala. The majority of the original manuscripts were found in the pueblo of Santa Eulalia however several manuscripts were copied or originate in San Juan Ixcoi and San Mateo Ixtatán. The great peaks of the Cuchumatán mountain range dominate the area's landscape and the rugged terrain is largely responsible for the isolation of the indigenous peoples residing there. These communities were composed nearly entirely of native peoples with the exception of a few Spanish missionaries.

A great variety of music is contained in these unassuming manuscripts. Latin masses and motets, psalm settings, striking fabordones, Spanish and vernacular villancicos, pabanillas, and other more unusual forms all reside together. The majority of the music is sacred and would have been used in church services. Music proved to be a strong selling point for the church and remained an integral part of the service. Antonio Vásquez de Espinosa visited the area in the early seventeenth century, in his description of the diocese of Guatemala are these paragraphs:

The Indians are all naturally impassive and at the same time ingenious; they learn easily whatever they see the Spaniards do, and whatever handicraft exercises skill. The majority are good singers and expert with all sorts of musical instruments . shawms, recorders, sackbuts, dulcians, cornets and organs which they make out of numerous reeds very cleverly and ingeniously joined together; these they use to celebrate the divine service with greater solemnity. ..no matter how small the villages might be, they have distinguished cantors and choir masters, who officiate with great seriousness and piety at the Mass; they sing Vespers to organ music, and celebrate saints. days much better than Spaniards do.

Although this music demonstrates clear Old World influence, many works have no concordances outside of the Lilly Library Manuscripts and possess a distinct and imaginative character. The majority of the texts are in Latin or Spanish but the manuscripts also include works in Nahuatl and Jacaltec-Chuj languages.