A 14th-Century Salmagundi

Digital Release available now! Physical release coming May 21, 2021.

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Support Our Spring Appeal

Please help us reach our goal of $30,000 so we may continue to share the joy of our music both near and far, in person or virtually.

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Thank you for a great season!

All concert videos will remain viewable to ticket holders until June 30, 2021.

 

OCKEGHEM SONGS VOLUME I

“. . .these neglected chansons take on a hitherto unsuspected radiance that touches heart and mind alike.” Bestenliste, Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik (January 2020)

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Cipriano de Rore, Madrigals for five voices (1542): WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING

“. . .masterfully, sensitively done, and most highly recommended.” – Early Music America (June 2020)

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Support Blue Heron’s Spring Appeal

As we close out this season, we ask you to help us prepare for next season with a gift that will ensure a vital return to a full season of both familiar and new live programming. Please help us reach our goal of $30,000 so we may continue to share the joy of our music both near and far, in person or virtually.

Read the full appeal letter

Donate to the Spring Appeal

Blue Heron on the Radio

The Lost Music of Canterbury
WCRB “In Concert” Broadcast

Stream On Demand Here

Concert Information and Program

Recorded on February 8, 2019 at The Parish of All Saints – Ashmont

This program will be available for on-demand streaming for 6 months past the live date.

Thank you!

Thank you so much for coming to Blue Heron’s concerts, Spotlight Sessions, and Ockeghem Academy during this strange adventure of the 2020-21 season. We are so grateful to you for the tremendous enthusiasm, generosity, and support we have had all year. With your help, Blue Heron not only survived, but flourished in all sorts of new ventures we would not otherwise have pursued. You made it possible.

As a dessert to the banquet of the season, please enjoy this concert recording of one of Gilles Binchois’s greatest songs, which sets a ballade by Christine de Pizan lamenting the untimely death of her beloved husband. The song was recorded in a concert at First Church in Cambridge on February 18, 2017, part of our Ockeghem@600 project. All the best wishes for spring from everyone at Blue Heron. We look forward to seeing you next season, in one way or another!

Dueil angoisseux
Gilles de Bins, dit Binchois (c.1400-1460)
Text by Christine de Pizan (1364-c.1430)

Jason McStoots, Laura Pudwell, Sumner Thompson, voices

Video by Kathy Wittman | Ball Square Films
Audio by Joel Gordon




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“

This highly important [Peterhouse recording] project, one of the most important early choral projects of our time, has unearthed a series of masterly composers hitherto virtually unknown...Such is the authority of Scott Metcalfe and his singers with this repertoire that they negotiate even the most daringly challenging and unexpected passages with utter confidence, and, as previously, with a delicious blend of expressiveness and seemingly inexorable forward momentum.

D. James Ross, Early Music Review (UK)
“

a revelation - fresh, dynamic and vibrant...urgent and wondrous music-making of the highest order

Damian Fowler, Gramophone (UK)
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fine gradations of dynamics; pungent diction; telling contrasts of ethereal and earthly timbres; tempos that are more lusty than languid; a way of propelling a phrase toward a goal. ... The singing is both precise and fluid, immaculate and alive...

Alex Ross, The New Yorker
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A listener then would have been lucky to hear these works brought off with such panache. The program is by turns pensive and lively, and the scholarship required to evoke stylistic accuracy is put totally at the service of performance.

David Allen, The New York Times
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I feel privileged to be able to revel in such a subtle shaped set of performances... This is the kind of recording that makes you sit up and pay attention.. There is plenty that is memorable here, and always the anticipation of something juicy to relish just around the corner. You can't ask much more than that from a CD.

Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International
“

The earthy sensuousness of Blue Heron's singing coupled with the curatorial care behind its programming have clearly earned the trust of audiences

Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe
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But Blue Heron’s devotion to this repertory — the ensemble has recorded five albums of music from the Peterhouse Partbooks — is not justified only by its rarity. This is vivid and radiant music. ...
... With two or three singers to a part and women stepping into the shoes of boy choristers, Blue Heron brings a zesty and sensual sound to these works of devotional music.

Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times