February 28 & March 6, MIT Chapel and Morse Hall, Walker Memorial Bldg.
Boston's esteemed Camerata will perform two programs: Portes du Ciel and Of All the Flowers: Song of the Middle Ages. during their 60th season and will collaborate with MIT Professor of Music Michael Cuthbert, author of music 21.
About the Artists
The Boston Camerata was associated until 1974 with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It was founded at that institution by Narcissa Williamson, and was directed in its early seasons by Anne Gombosi, Howard Mayer Brown, Daniel Pinkham, and Victor Mattfeld. Camerata incorporated as a nonprofit entity, and began self-producing its own local concert series, in 1974. From 1968 to 2008, Joel Cohen directed the ensemble's activities, which grew exponentially under his leadership. He is is now Music Director Emeritus.
In the United States, Camerata has participated in early music festivals at Berkeley and San Antonio, as well as in many of the biennial Boston Early Music Festivals. The ensemble has maintained an extensive touring schedule across the entire United States. Camerata's second, third and fourth invitations to the renowned Tanglewood Festival came in 1992, 1994 and 1995, respectively. A widely praised national tour of Cantigas in 2000 marked Camerata’s first collaboration with the Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble; the two groups performed together again in Paris in 2007. Other important Camerata appearances in the United States include music making at Lincoln Center, New York, The Cloisters, New York, The Smithsonian Institute, The National Cathedral (Washington), The Library of Congress, and The Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Over 30 CD's and videos have been released under The Boston Camerata's name, on the Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Nonesuch Telefunken, Glissando, and Warner Classics labels and have received worldwide distribution. In 1989, Joel Cohen and the Camerata were awarded the coveted Grand Prix du Disque for their recording, based on original sources, of the medieval Tristan and Iseult legend. This now-historic recording was re-released in the spring of 2008. Camerata's recorded performance of Jean Gilles' Requiem became a bestseller in Europe during the spring of 1993. The CD recording of the ensemble's 1992 Tanglewood Festival program, Nueva España: Close Encounters in the New World, was released in autumn, 1993 to critical acclaim in both Europe and America. Simple Gifts, a recording of Shaker spirituals and chants was the number one bestseller on the national Billboard magazine classical chart during later 1995 and early 1996. Three new releases in 1996, Dowland--Farewell, Unkind: Songs and Dances; Trav'ling Home: American Spirituals 1770-1870; and Carmina Burana each won critical acclaim in the European musical press; the Dowland recording was nominated in January, 1997 for the French Grand Prix des Discophiles. The Boston Camerata’s most recent new recording, A Mediterranean Christmas, (Warner Classics) became an international bestseller during late 2005. A Boston Camerata Christmas, a three-CD compilation of earlier recorded repertoire, appeared on Warner Classics in late 2008, and a co-ordinated series of Americana re-releases by Camerata also appeared on Warner Classics in early 2009.