Montreal-based ensembles perform together at Saulnierville church
Two of Montreal’s prominent musical forces dive into a concert exploring medieval and oriental music at Église Sacre Coeur, 9650, Route 1 in Saulnierville, on Wednesday,
Sept. 25, at 7 p.m.
Hear! Here! Society is proud to be a sponsor of Pres du Soleil, a Musique Royale concert featuring two Montreal-based groups, Ensemble Caprice and Constantinople. Pres du Soleil opens in Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City before the Maritime leg of the tour begins.
This is one of only three performances set for Nova Scotia and audiences will get to hear it here first.
“Hear! Here! Society co-chair Joan Semple says this is the biggest event of the group’s musical year and one of the most ambitious concerts it has undertaken in its 11-year history.
“Eight of Canada’s leading performers, two of Canada’s most enduring and innovative chamber music ensembles — this is a big deal for us,” she said.
Hear! Here! has been working with a local host committee in Clare for months. Semple said tickets, $20 advance/$25 at the door/students $10 at the door, are available by phone reservation 902-7428765; 902-769-2113, online at https://www.canadahelps. org/en/charities/musiqueroyale-a-treasury-of-musicfrom-our-historic-past/events/ pres-du-soleil-saulnierville/ and at the door.
For decades, Ensemble Caprice has been exploring new sound universes. The baroque ensemble performs on period instruments, and explores an increasingly expanding musical repertoire. The ensemble is a regular guest at European festivals: the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music in London, the Bruges (Belgium) and Utrecht (Netherlands) festivals, the Felicia Blumenthal International Music Festival in Tel Aviv; and in Germany, the Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci, the Regensburg Early Music Festival, the Händel-Festspele in Halle, and the Stockstadt festival. In November of 2009, a reviewer in The New York Times praised them as “imaginative, even powerful; and the playing is top-flight.”
Constantinople has been wowing audiences since 1998 with its musical cross-fertilizaton of east and west. They perform regularly across the world, including: the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music in Morocco, the Rencontres musicales de Conques in France, the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, the Cervantino Festival in Mexico, the Festival de Carthage in Tunisia, the Onassis Cultural Centre-Athens and the BOZAR in Brussels. Over the course of the last decade, Constantinople has created nearly 40 works and travelled to more than 140 cities in 30 countries.