Arcadia Players - New England's Period Instrument Ensemble

Arcadia Players embraces 
historical performance 
practice to illuminate 
and invigorate the 
great Western heritage 
of vocal and 
instrumental music.
Arcadia Viols
with Tenor Daniel Carberg and Baritone Matthew Leese
in “Pastime with Good Company: Music from Court circa 1500”
 
Sunday, February 23, at 3:00 p.m.
Wesley United Methodist Church, Hadley
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The consort Arcadia Viols will be joined by tenor Daniel Carberg and baritone Matthew Leese in a program that features works of Josquin, Ludwig Senfl and other composers who flourished around 1500 at the courts of Isabella d’Este in Mantua, England’s King Henry VIII and the Emperor Maximilian I. Several pieces are by Henry VIII himself. From the extensive repertory first performed in those courts the consort will play varied pieces for viols and are joined by Daniel Carberg and Matthew Leese in songs from these courts. The concert will be given on Sunday, February 23, 2020, at 3:00 p.m. at Wesley United Methodist Church, a venue especially gracious for chamber music. A link to street maps and directions may be found on the “Venue Directions” page of arcadiaplayers.org.
Isabella d’Este, the daughter of Duke Ercole I of Ferrara, was called by a contemporary ‘the first lady of the world.’  When she established her court in Mantua as the wife of Francesco Gonzaga, she sponsored native Italian musicians as well as famous northerners and was important in encouraging both families of stringed instruments, viols and violins. It is fitting for a program featuring the viol family to begin with music from her court and circle.  Meanwhile, in England the young King Henry VIII, who was ‘much delighted to sing,’ imported viols and other instruments from Italy. His court left us a manuscript containing music the King and his friends enjoyed together, works from France and Burgundy as well as pieces by native composers including the King himself.  In Vienna, the Emperor Maximilian I assembled the largest musical establishment Europe had ever seen.  One of the brightest stars of his court was the composer Ludwig Senfl, whose songs combine lovely German folk tunes with intricate polyphony, and who composed some of the earliest purely instrumental pieces in the Renaissance.
 
Arcadia Viols was founded in 2009 as an ensemble of five violas da gamba associated with Arcadia Players. Members Robert Eisenstein, Jane Hershey, Douglas Kelly, Anne Legêne and Alice Robbins, all of whom are active individually with other ensembles and as teachers, have played together in many venues in the Northeast and beyond. Besides their numerous concerts presented by Arcadia Players they have appeared with the Folger Consort and Stile Antico at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, at Corpus Christi Church in New York City, and in adventurous performances featuring 21st-century music for their ensemble. Collaborations with keyboard performers, lutenists and singers have allowed them to bring audiences more of the vast treasury of Renaissance and Baroque music for consort of viols.
 
Joining Arcadia Viols in consort songs by Josquin, Ludwig Senfl and others are tenor Daniel Carberg and baritone Matthew Leese, both based in New Hampshire while they perform and conduct widely. Daniel Carberg has appeared in concert at major early music festivals, sung the title role in Monteverdi’s Orfeo with Opera Otago in New Zealand, and has directed operas of Purcell, Monteverdi, Handel and Charpentier. He is currently Coordinator of Vocal Activities at Keene State College where he teaches and conducts opera, and a member of the vocal ensembles LIBER, The Concord Ensemble and Gravitación.
 
Matthew Leese, also based in Keene, New Hampshire, began his studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and completed them at the University of Illinois. He conducts the Concert Choir, Opera Workshop and Vocal Consort at Keene State College and has directed opera and oratorio and other performances in New England, New Brunswick and beyond. Co-founder and director of the professional choir Zenith Ensemble, he also appears with the Medieval ensemble LIBER and other groups as baritone soloist and professional chorister.
 

 
On March 29 Arcadia returns to Our Lady of the Valley Parish, Easthampton, to present Johann Theile’s St. Matthew Passion with guest conductor Tony Thornton and Illuminati Vocal Arts Ensemble.
Arcadia Players’ 2019-20 concert season is made possible through the support of our patrons and donors, by our hosts Mount Holyoke College, Our Lady of the Valley Parish in Easthampton and Wesley United Methodist Church in Hadley, and by our media sponsor, New England Public Radio, WFCR and all-news WNNZ , and in 2020 by the Cultural Councils of Amherst, Hadley and Easthampton, local agencies supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. Arcadia Players is Ensemble-in-Residence at the Arthur F. Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies.
 
Arcadia Players' 2019-2020 concert season is made possible through the support of you, our patrons and donors, 
our hosts Mount Holyoke College, Wesley United Methodist Church, and Our Lady of the Valley Parish,
our media sponsor New England Public Radio, WFCR and all-news WNNZ,
and in 2019 by the Cultural Councils of Amherst, Easthampton, Hadley, and South Hadley,
and local agencies supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
Arcadia Players is Ensemble-in-Residence at the Arthur F. Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies.
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