Piffaro Opens Season In Person And Online With A World Premiere

Philadelphia's internationally renowned period instrument ensemble, Piffaro the Renaissance Band, opens its final season under the leadership of its founders, Joan Kimball and Bob Wiemken, in person October 8-10 and online October 16-26. The program features the world premiere of a major new work by composer Kile Smith in addition to the ensemble's authoritative explorations of the music of the 15th-17th centuries. Piffaro's virtuosic multi-instrumentalists are joined by vocal ensemble Variant 6 and Kiri Tollaksen, cornetto. Musicians, staff, and volunteers are fully vaccinated; proof of vaccination and well-fitted masks are required for attendance at in-person concerts. Concert and ticket information are available at www.piffaro.org or by calling 215-235-8469.

The concert program, A New Sun Rises, celebrates new suns and guiding stars with repertoire ranging from settings of the ancient hymn A solis ortus cardine (From the point of the rising sun) to Smith's Ave Maris Stella (Hail, Star of the Sea). The concert title alludes to the momentous transition taking place within the ensemble with the retirement of Kimball and Wiemken (the "guiding stars" and 2021 recipients of Early Music America's Lifetime Achievement Award ) and the coming leadership of artistic director designate Priscilla Herreid (the "new sun").

The hymn to Mary, Ave Maris Stella, is thought to be from the 8th to the 10th centuries. Stella maris translates as "Star of the sea" and the term was associated with Mary as the guiding star through troubled waters - protector not only of sailors, but of anyone figuratively at sea. Smith notes that "none could have known when the project began over two years ago that its refrain would sound, poignantly, in the midst of the troubled waters of pandemic and national strife." Artistic director Wiemken draws a parallel to the work's astral-inspired antecedents: "Throughout recorded history the heavenly bodies were considered to determine the course of human events and chart the course for both terrestrial and seaward travelers. They did and still do serve as metaphors for everything from the emergence of new life to the release from plague, the latter quite apropos at this time."

Piffaro's mission includes the charge to not only bring the music of the 15th-17th centuries to life, but to connect it to the music of our day, and the ensemble has a long and fruitful relationship with Smith doing just that. The most significant prior work is Smith's Vespers, recorded in 2008 with GRAMMY-winning chorus The Crossing. It is appropriate, then, that this new work will be performed with the vocalists of Philadelphia's Variant 6, all of whom are members of The Crossing.