HESPERUS

Concert Program
Program Notes
Biographies

The Robin Hood Project
Saturday, February 11, 2006
7 PM, Byham Theater

Johana Arnold — soprano voice
Tina Chancey — Director, viola da gamba, vielle, fiddle, recorder
Grant Herreid — lute, recorder, pipe and tabor, cornetto, shawm, tenor voice
Kathryn Montoya — recorders, sordune, shawm

In Sherwood lived stout Robin Hood	Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
La Bounette/La Doune cella	The Mulliner Book 16th c. England
La Roque	Pierre Attaignant (1494-1551)
Ohne Fels	Tielmann Susato (c. 1500-1561)
Pastime with good Company	Henry VIII (1491-1547)
And I were a Maiden	Court of Henry VIII
L’homme armé	15th c. French
Madame d’amours	16th c. English
Palesteinlied	13th c. German
La mi la sol	Heinrich Isaac (1450-1517)
Chançonetta Tedescha	12th c. French
Istampitta Isabella	14th c. Italian
Istampitta Belicha	14th c. Italian
Dame vostre douce viare	Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377)
Se d’amer	Machaut
Oh my heart	16th c. English
Tandernaken	Henry VIII
Blow thy horn, Hunter	William Cornysh (d. 1502)
Bransle de la Torche	Pierre Phalèse (c. 1507-1575)
Le Buffons	Phalèse
Le Chat & Le Soulier	Attaignant
I am a Jolly Foster	Court of Henry VIII
Tourdion	Attaignant
Deemed wrongfully	Henry VIII
Helas madame	Henry VIII
Washerwoman Bransle, Pease Bransle, Bransle de Cheval	16th c. French
Tant que vivray	Claudin de Sermisy (c. 1490-1562)
Philip Van Wilder’s Dompe	The Mulliner Book

Program Notes

Few characters from the past have captured the American popular imagination as completely as Robin Hood, even though he doesn’t visit seasonally like Santa Claus, or spring from the pen of a single author like Sherlock Holmes. Robin’s life has been celebrated in dozens of books, TV series and movies. Young and old can describe the gallant archer dressed in green who robs from the rich to give to the poor, lives in Sherwood Forest with Little John and Friar Tuck, loves Maid Marian, and hates wicked Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham. But if you ask when he lived, the answers will span almost 300 years.

In truth, the Robin Hood we revere today is an amalgam of centuries of myth and legend. Because of this, when HESPERUS decided to create an early music soundtrack to accompany Douglas Fairbanks’ marvelous silent film, at first we didn’t know what musical repertoire to use. We chose music from the court of King Henry VIII for the court scenes; Henry was a Robin Hood fan and many of his favorite songs talk of hunting in the Greenwood. For the crusade scenes we play medieval tunes from the time of the crusades that have a certain Middle Eastern flavor. While our music is authentically early and we perform it on the appropriate instruments, every showing of the film is different, and you’ll hear a great deal of improvisation and spontaneous ornamentation.

Tina Chancey

Biographies

JOHANA ARNOLD, soprano, enjoys an eclectic career as opera singer, chamber music and oratorio singer, actress in both music theater and theater, and teacher. She is a frequent guest artist with the Folger Consort and Hesperus in Washington D.C. For many years, she was a member of the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble in New York City, where she also performed with the Ensemble for Early Music, Concert Royal, and the New York Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. Ms. Arnold has sung with Western Opera and Michigan Opera Theaters and with ensembles including Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, and Meredith Monk. She has concertized and sung in operas in Europe, Asia and South America. Ms. Arnold now lives outside of Delhi, New York, teaching at Hartwick College and singing with groups including Orpheus Theater, the Catskill Symphony and the Catskill Choral Society. Ms. Arnold has recorded with the Nonesuch, Musical Heritage, Bard, CRI and Western Wind labels.

TINA CHANCEY, a founding member and director of HESPERUS, is also a member of the rock band Blackmore’s Night and a former member of the Folger Consort, the Ensemble for Early Music and the New York Renaissance Band. A multi-instrumentalist specializing in early bowed strings from the rebec and vielle to the kamenj, viol and lyra, she has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts to support solo performances on the pardessus de viole at the Kennedy Center and Weil Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. She has performed with Ex Umbris, La Rondinella, and QUOG, an improvisational multi-media music theater group. Dr. Chancey received her PhD in Musicology from the Union Institute. Her articles on early music appear in scholarly and popular publications, and she has recorded for a score of labels from Arabesque to Windham Hill. She directs “What’s That Note, Inc., ” teaching sight singing and ear training to amateur singers, and also works as an independent recording producer.

GRANT HERREID is a multi-instrumentalist and singer who performs frequently on winds, strings and voice with Hesperus and Piffaro, and plays theorbo and lute with the baroque ensemble Artek. He also teaches at Mannes College of Music and directs the New York Continuo Collective. Mr. Herreid has created and directed several theatrical early music shows, including ’Il Caffe d’Amore’,a pastiche of early 17th century Italian songs and arias. For the Amherst Early Music Festival he has created and directed a number of productions, featuring German alchemy, English gypsies, French fools, Italian zanies, and Death. But mostly he devotes his time to exploring the esoteric unwritten traditions of early Renaissance music with the group Ex Umbris.

KATHRYN MONTOYA has performed with many ensembles, including Apollo’s Fire, The Newberry Consort, Ensemble Arion, the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Opera Theatre, the Washington Bach Consort and tours internationally with the Celtic group Ensemble Galilei. She is a recipient of the prestigious Performers Certificate at Indiana University and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Germany. Kathryn was a finalist in the American Bach Soloist Competition and has appeared as a soloist with the Bloomington Early Music Festival Orchestra and the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. This past summer she performed with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra in the world premiere of Johann Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow and was on faculty at Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute. Kathryn has recorded for the Naxos label.

HESPERUS: From the stage of Lincoln Center to Germany, Bolivia & Singapore-Hesperus is a group with a vision. Dedicated to bringing the musical past alive by relating it to the present, its five members comprise overlapping ensembles that perform fusions of early music and traditional music, film soundtracks, and programs of British and Spanish Colonial styles. With more than a quarter of a century of experience touring the globe, HESPERUS is one the nation’s first, and most important presenters of “chamber folk” music, bringing the energy and spirit of world music to virtuoso performances on a wide array of early and traditional musical instruments. Appearing frequently at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (where it was a resident ensemble from 1989-1996), Hesperus can be heard on 15 commercial recordings, TV, film and radio, and in the films Sleepy Hollow, Reluctant Saint: Francis of Assisi, the Emmy-nominated St. Patrick of Ireland, and Joan of Arc. The group has received multiple WAMMIE awards from the Washington Area Music Association, the Baltimore Chamber Music Award, the Music and Humanity Award (Gretna, PA), the Elizabeth Campbell award from the AAUW, and the Logan Chamber Music Award for Outstanding Educational Programming. For more about HESPERUS, visit www.hesperus.org.

Scott Reiss, Hesperus’ founding director, died in December 2005, a victim of bi-polar disorder. Hesperus members have decided to continue his vision. We hope you will enjoy this presentation.