The Waimea Consort, an a cappella vocal ensemble of 12 singers, has been organized in January 1999 to bring rarely heard vocal music to the Big Island. Concerts in Waimea, Hilo and Honolulu allowed many to discover medieval, baroque, and 20th century a cappella music. Its last concert in Waimea was nearly 18 months ago, although the Consort appeared last Christmas in various performances (The Gift of Christmas, the Hawaiian Nutcracker, ..) and had a very successful trip to Oahu at the time of the French Festival in Honolulu in November 2000. The Consort has been exploring new music for the past eight months, while readjusting its group after the loss of a few members moving far from the Island or retiring. 
   

The concert will cover eight centuries of a cappella vocal music, both secular and sacred, in an hour long program. Five rondeaux by Adam de la Halle will expose the torments of lovers' separation in the French 13th century with the strange harmonies of Medieval polyphony. English madrigals and French chansons will then bring the more classic sounds of Renaissance music to love's joys and pains. Sacred music is next, with an exquisite setting of Psalm 137 composed by Goudimel in 1552, followed by Mendelssohn's "Sechs Spruche" (Op. 79), a series of six pieces covering the main events of the liturgic year in an eight part polyphony with striking harmonies in a romantic mood.  Two pieces composed in 1882 by Camille Saint-Saëns will bring you back to secular music, exploiting the contrast between the quiet of darkness and the rapid bustle of daylight, and the relationship between the variety of nature and the diversity of human emotion. The concert will close with a contemporary setting by Poulenc of a French folk song with harmonies reminiscent of the Medieval sounds which opened the concert.

If you love vocal music,  if you want to listen to a wide range of polyphonic songs, or if you are intrigued by something you never heard, come to the Fall 2001 Concert of the Waimea Consort. You won't regret it, and it is worth an up-hill drive to Waimea from either side of the Island...