We are very excited about our upcoming concert featuring Marcel Pérès, so we wanted to share a little about his own ensemble — Ensemble Organum!
The Organum Ensemble was founded in 1982 by Marcel Pérès at Sénanque Abbay (France) and has been supported since 1984 by the Fondation Royaumont. The Ensemble develops programmes which combine the source material, in the form of musical scores, and the aesthetics of chanting preserved through oral traditions.
This approach has succeeded in infusing new life into medieval and early music. Of the long forgotten repertoires of the past only the written signs remain to indicate how the sound is produced. Yet this music now resounds with new inspiration.
The Organum Ensemble invites you to consider a new approach to the past. In this approach historical facts are perceived as events emerging in a continuous flux. The centuries are no longer frontiers; each new event becomes the expression of a privileged moment in which traditions meet, mingle, fade, disappear or endure, remaining distinct and perennial.
The ensemble has studied and developed most of the influential European repertoires since the VIth century. The field of investigation stretches to the three last centuries of the second millenium, highlighting the existence of enduring medieval aesthetics in certain circles until the last decades of the XXth century.
The ensembles’s discography presents works that span a period from the dawn of christianity to the XVIIIth century, with occasional incursions into the XXth century in the form of vocal or instrumental expertise that is still alive in certain countries today.
Concerts:
Portland – 8pm, Friday, November 16th, St. Mary’s Cathedral
Seattle – 8pm, Saturday, November 17th, St. James Cathedral
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