Now I'll be the first to admit I'm slack. Generally I don't even bother looking at the FotA booklet cos the stuff I want to see sells out quickly or it's too expensive to really justify. So I'd like to thank Patricia for being far more organised and dragging me to the Boston Camerata. As she put it 'it's odd music, you seemed the obvious choice'. Sweet.
A choral group that specialises in American religious groups from the 18th century. Think 'O Brother Where Art Thou' - kinda. Well it's a good starting point. The music is, as it was described, quite simple and linked strongly to Scottish, English and Irish music. Based on a pentatonic scale the music was written by amateurs for other amateur groups to sing. Harmonies revolve around 3rds and 5ths, with the occasionally 4th as a passing - and no real evidence of counterpoint. For those reasons it sounds much simpler (?pure?) than the more complex stuff I usually listen to. Beautifully performed and really interesting to listen to (helped that one of the sopranos was hot - looked a bit like the babe in the faculty office when we were in VZ). A variety of early American religious groups were represented including Protestants (at St Mary's !!), Shakers and their origins in Europe.
I enjoyed this concert. I found the directness (and quality) of the performance really enjoyable, even some audience participation - and this isn't a style of music you get to hear a lot.
Website; Shaker samples;
Movies: O Brother Where Art Thou (vaguely), and slightly more relevant Songcatcher. I've watched SongCatcher, and the music is fantastic, the movie is a bit of a dreary chickflick.
Currently listening to Daniel Johnston which seems right.
me x
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