Orlando Consort to Perform in Morrison Series

The four members of the Orlando Consort (photograph by Eric Richmond, courtesy of the Morrison Artists Series)

The second concert in the 2018–2019 season of the Morrison Artists Series, presented by the College of Liberal and Creative Arts at San Francisco State University (SFSU), will host a visit by the all-male vocal quartet that calls themselves the Orlando Consort. This group was formed in 1988 by the Early Music Network of Great Britain, and they have developed a repertoire organized around the half-millennium between 1050 and 1550. Historians tend to refer to this as the time of the High Middle Ages and the Late Middle Ages. For music historians, it is the time when polyphony emerged. This was followed by taking on the problem of coordinating multiple voices, which led to the initial developments of music notation as we now know it.

The Orlando Consort has prepared a program entitled The Ambassadors. It is structured into six sections, each of which is associated with a specific month and a specific venue as follows:

1. Duke Charles the Bold’s Encampment at the Siege of Neuss, May 1475
2. Eton College in Windsor (England), September 1479
3. The Court of Galeazzo Maria Sforza in Milan, November 1475
4. The Sistine Chapel in Rome, March 1508
5. The Casa del Cordon in Burgos, September 1506
6. Whitehall Palace in London, March 1533

Contributing composers include Josquin des Prez from the early sixteenth century and King Henry VIII, whose rule began during Josquin’s lifetime.

This concert will begin at 8 p.m. on Friday, October 26. The venue will be the McKenna Theatre, which is in the Creative Arts Building at SFSU, a short walk from the SFSU Muni stop at the corner of 19th Avenue and Holloway Avenue. Tickets are free but advance registration is highly desirable. Reservations may be made through the event page for this concert. As usual, all of the ensemble members will give a collective Master Class, which will be held at 2 p.m. on the day of the performance. This two-hour session will also take place in the Creative Arts Building, and will be open to the general public at no charge and with no requirements for tickets.