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PRESS KIT / MATERIALS FOR PRESENTERS
THE TUDORS: Music for Voice and Lute from the Tudor Courts
Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 4:00pm
Discover the vibrant music of England's famously fascinating Tudor monarchs. Lute song duo Mignarda will travel 118 years through time in a single afternoon, tracing the musical influences of this colorful and musically gifted clan which reigned from 1485 until 1603. All the Tudors were trained in music from childhood and were accomplished lutenists, singers, and even composers. And all employed legions of important musicians, French, Flemish, Spanish and Italian. A pastiche derived from an expanded four-concert series, the program offers a rich sampling from the bounteous Tudor musical legacy. Beginning with the mesmerizing rondeaux of the time of Henry VII, romp through the lusty fare of Henry VIII's tempestuous court, followed by the serenity of sacred music favored by the devout "Bloody Mary", finally reveling in the lush and familiar songs of loyalty, love and longing from Elizabeth's Golden Age. Please plan to join Ron Andrico & Donna Stewart at 4pm Sunday afternoon, October 25th in the lovely acoustic at the Grace Episcopal Church on West Church Street in Elmira.
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
The duo's 6 CDs are winning critical acclaim. Reviewers have described their music as "radiant", "bewitching". and "laden with elegance". The Lute Society (UK) has called Rota Fortuna "essential listening". Divine Amarillis, their recording of French music from the early 17th century, was selected from a pool of 42,000 recordings for the award of first place for Best Album in the 2009 Just Plain Folks awards. Both Divine Amarillis and My Lord of Oxenford's Maske, their third release, have been selected as Choice CDs by Cleveland, Ohio's mainstream classical radio station WCLV. All three are included among CDBaby's top 40 best-selling classical CDs. Read more reviews here. Ron Andrico is a lute specialist with a background in folk and pop music and publication of several important music editions and scholarly articles to his credit. Maintaining firm ties with his folk music background, Andrico teaches fiddle, banjo, guitar and mandolin in the Ithaca, NY area. Vocalist Donna Stewart has a long background in research and interpretation of Gregorian chant and the renaissance choral repertory. Known for her warm delivery, Stewart is gaining recognition as having the ideal voice both for renaissance lute song and for crossover folk styles. Together, the duo specialize in performing music that resides in the grey zone between folk and art music, with interpretations that follow the renaissance ideal of 'moving the passions' of the listener. Donna Stewart and Ron Andrico met in Cleveland, Ohio while singing Gregorian chant and renaissance polyphony in a five-voice choir for a weekly Latin Mass. They have recently relocated to New York after an idyllic year living in a log cabin off the grid in the Siskiyou Mountains, where they produced their own electricity, cut their own firewood, and enjoyed the welcome opportunity to refine their music with only the songs of birds to compete with the soft sound of the lute. They now live in a handmade house in the woods in West Danby, New York, just south of Ithaca. Although the duo have appeared across the country since moving to the Finger Lakes area, Mignarda is getting to know their newly adopted home by scheduling informal appearances in local spaces that best serve their intimate repertory. Capturing the nuance and intricacy of early music with warmth and flair, Mignarda’s performances remind 21st century audiences that at one time this WAS pop music.
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