In what BBC Music Magazine chose as its number one “unmissable Christmas event,” Nowell Synge We Bothe Al and Som is a reimagined carol evening from U.K.-based Gothic Voices.
For more than 40 years, the ensemble has been renowned for the excellence, refinement and spirituality of its performances of medieval music. The group is recognized as an absolute leader in the field, having toured extensively throughout Europe and the Americas.
Friday, Dec. 15 marks the first appearance at ArtSpring for tenor Julian Podger, mezzo-soprano Catherine King, tenor Steven Harrold and baritone Simon Whiteley,, whose other-worldly repertoire includes late medieval English carols, chants, mono- and polyphonic songs for the Advent and Christmas season, focusing on Mary, her Annunciation and the birth of Jesus.
Larger-scale motets and the festive mass movements of early English “medieval celebrities” John Dunstable and Leonel Power also feature.
Just as music lovers gather today during the Christmas season for a hearty carol-singing evening focusing on traditional melodies of the past, Gothic Voices invites audiences to imagine such an event from 600 years ago where singing traditional music from the past meant reaching back a further 300 years.
The result is a haunting and powerfully unique choral performance that transports audiences back to the time, tone and spirit of the Middle Ages.
Originally founded in 1980 by the scholar and musician Christopher Page, Gothic Voices has gone on to record 25 CDs with a mission to bring medieval music into the mainstream. Its first recording, A Feather on the Breath of God – Sequences and Hymns by Abbess Hildegard of Bingen, still remains one of the best-selling recordings of pre-classical music ever made.
Tickets are on sale for $35, with the Angel Ticket program opening up seats for only $15 a week before the performance, available in person or by phone.