England’s Orlando Consort Tempts the Palette While Pleasing the Ear
January 25, 2005
An English male vocal group, Orlando Consort expertly renders early European repertoire. In Food, Wine and Song: Music and Feasting in Medieval and Early Renaissance Europe, the quartet chronicles the three-part human appetite for eating, drinking and making love. The culinary quest–at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 11, in Penn State’s Schwab Auditorium–brims with lush harmonies, flowing counterpoint and a splash of bawdy banter.
Tickets for the University Park concert are on sale now at $24 for an adult; $10 for a full-time University Park student; and $17 for a person 18 and younger. For tickets and information, log on to www.cpa.psu.edu or phone 863-0255. Outside the local calling area, dial 1-800-ARTS-TIX. Tickets are also available at Eisenhower Auditorium, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays; Penn State Tickets Downtown in the lobby of State College’s Penn State Downtown Theatre Center, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday; HUB-Robeson Center Information Desk, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays; and Bryce Jordan Center, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
“The Orlando Consort‚s performances are staggeringly beautiful,” writes a reviewer for The Times of London.
Since 1988, the consort has developed a reputation for the quality of its singing as well as the depth of understanding its performers bring to the repertoire. Countertenor Robert Harre-Jones, tenors Mark Dobell and Angus Smith, and baritone Donald Greig are lauded soloists. But each singer also works with scholars to bring to contemporary audiences music that, in many cases, has not been heard for hundreds of years.
“Unlike other, more deadly serious vocal ensembles, the Orlando Consort clearly enjoys putting across the words and spirit of the music they sing,” notes a critic for the Boston Globe. “Their performance was marked by impeccable diction–no lost consonants here–and by nicely particularized moods. If a song was lusty or playful or sweetly romantic, that’s how the consort performed it.”
Pleasing the senses by mixing food, drink and music is nothing new. During the period explored in the music of Food, Wine and Song–1220 to 1585–European chefs and musicians concocted lavish feasts and entertainments challenging mastery of their crafts. Composers wove musical tapestries by blending alluring melodies with complicated harmonies and rhythms. Using science and artistry, cooks took advantage of an array of herbs, spices and other ingredients to create culinary masterpieces. When the music and food of the medieval and early Renaissance periods are brought together, an enticing tale of art, eating habits and social life emerges.
Food, Wine, and Song includes selections from France, England, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany. The quartet itself is even more traveled, having performed in eighteen European counties, the United States, Canada, Japan and in South America.
Hoag’s Catering sponsors the performance. WPSU-FM is the media partner. Artistic Viewpoints, sponsored by the Center for the Performing Arts Community Advisory Council, provides insight from an artist or expert perspective and is offered free to interested ticket holders in Schwab Auditorium one hour before the performance.
Contact: Laura Sullivan, 814-863-6379