SFEMS to Welcome Stile Antico, 4/10

Marking the culmination of its 40th-anniversary concert season, the San Francisco Early Music Society (SFEMS) is very pleased to announce a special appearance by STILE ANTICO on Sunday, April 10, 2016. The celebrated English vocal ensemble will perform a concert titled Sacred or Profane? The Sensual Made Spiritual in the Renaissance surveying 300 years of music, from ribald folksongs worked into prayerful polyphony by Dufay and Taverner, to risqué chansons transformed by Lassus, Morales and Victoria into devout Masses and Magnificats, to Monteverdi's most erotic madrigals fitted with new sacred texts. Stile Antico performs at 4 p.m. at First Congregational Church in Berkeley. A reception in honor of SFEMS' 40th anniversary will immediately follow. Individual tickets from $28 to $56 are available for purchase online at sfems.org.

Stile Antico has been described as "the world's best possible ambassadors" for the repertoire of Renaissance polyphony (The Arts Desk). Working without a conductor, its twelve members have dazzled audiences throughout Europe and North. The group's best-selling recordings on the Harmonia Mundi label have earned accolades including the Gramophone Award for Early Music, the Diapason d'or de l'année, the Edison Klassiek Award, the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, and have twice received Grammy nominations. Their most recent album released in the fall 2015, A Wondrous Mystery, placed #1 on Billboard's Heatseekers Chart and #2 on Billboard's Top Classical Chart.

In their program for SFEMS next month, Stile Antico will explore the way some composers often turned secular music -- folk songs, chansons and madrigals, some of them extremely earthy in character -- into religious pieces, far removed from the spirit of the originals. The ensemble will perform both the secular works and their sacred counterparts, offering a fascinating and unexpected window onto the way that music was perceived in the Renaissance period.

Besides its core repertoire, the group has given world premieres of works by John McCabe and Huw Watkins, and recently juxtaposed the music of William Byrd and James MacMillan to great acclaim. Their diverse range of collaborations has included performances with viol consort Fretwork, pianist Marino Fomenti, orchestra B'Rock and Sting.

"We are honored to be a part of Stile Antico's U.S. national tour," said Robert Cole, president of the San Francisco Early Music Society. "Their special appearance here is a fitting capstone to SFEMS' 40th-anniversary concert season."

Additional stops on Stile Antico's U.S. tour include Seattle, WA; Concord, NH; Brattleboro, VT; Houston, TX; and Milwaukee, WI. For more information about Stile Antico visit stileantico.co.uk.