2012 Season Launch

Saturday 28 January 4pm, The Grove Library, Peppermint Grove

In 2012 The Giovanni Consort is under new management, focussed on transforming the image of niche choral music, and the image of the Consort itself. Exciting plans are well underway and several significant changes will be implemented during the coming year (including a reduction of ticket prices), all of which will hopefully result in a greater and more diverse following. Needless to say, that we will of course keep to our tradition of polished, stylish, and high-quality singing.

The 2012 Concert Series, comprised of four mid-week concerts, reflects this new direction with performances in new and interesting spaces, including Moore & Moore Cafe in Fremantle, and the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery at UWA. Over the course of the year, the Consort will present an extremely diverse selection of music from all musical periods that will feature some more mainstream choral works, but also some works which have not yet been performed in Perth. Josquin's Missa Pange Lingua, Parry's Songs of Farewell and Britten's Five Flower Songs are just a taste of what lies ahead for the Consort and the listener.

The Consort is delighted to work with two guest conductors in 2012: Joseph Nolan, who since arriving from England in 2008 has changed the face of choral music in Perth, and Jonathan Willcocks (son of Sir David Willcocks) who regularly conducts choirs and orchestras across five different continents. Both of these prodigious musicians will bring their individual flair to the Consort’s highly regarded, meticulous music making.

To help bring these plans to fruition, The Giovanni Consort is looking for Patrons and Subscribers who are interested in supporting the development of young musicians and the arts generally in Western Australia, and who have a passion for sublime and sensitive choral music. Subscribers will receive one ticket to each of our four concerts in 2012 at a discounted rate, while Patrons will receive two tickets to each of our four concerts, reserved seating at each concert, complimentary refreshments at every interval, the ability to purchase additional tickets at a discounted rate, and an invitation for two to an exclusive Patrons' Soiree. This will be an inaugural event designed to thank our faithful audience for their patronage, with canapés, drinks, and an intimate performance by the Consort.

More information on how to become a Subscriber or a Patron, as well as an opportunity to purchase individual tickets, can be found on the attached 2012 Subscription & Patronage form.

Finally, I would like to extend a personal invitation for two to The Giovanni Consort's 2012 Season Launch, to be held at The Grove Library on Saturday the 28th of January at 4pm. Complimentary season brochures, canapés, and wine will be available, and the Consort will perform a selection of music to whet your musical appetite for the coming year.

In the Midst of Life

Friday 18 November, 7:30pm, Chapel of St Mary and St George, Guildford Grammar School, Terrace Road, Guildford

Works Include: John Sheppard Media Vita, Regis Tharsis, Francesco Guerrero Ave Virgo Sanctissima, Frei Manuel Cardoso Requiem Aeternam and Kyrie

Conductor: David Gething, Organist: Stewart Smith

A dazzling concert of spectacular Tudor and Renaissance choral and organ music, this program includes some of the most majestic and splendid motets from the great polyphonic masters of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. The centrepiece of this program is the superb motet Media vita in morte sumus. The opening of this phrase of this awesome work is regarded as one of the greatest passages of all Tudor polyphony.

Also performed in this concert will be motets by the neglected master Francesco Guerrero and extracts from the magnificent and exotic Requiem by Frei Manuel Cardoso. Timeless, spacious and exhilarating, these works feature the rich sonorities and soaring vocal lines that require extra-ordinary technique and stamina. Although rarely heard in a live performance, these motets are perfectly suited to the fine voices of the Giovanni Consort in a concert that should not be missed!

Bach and Beyond

Saturday 3 September, 7:30pm, St Joseph's Catholic Church, Subiaco

Works Include: Johann Sebastian Bach Mass in A Major, Marc-Antoine Charpentier De Profundis Clamavi, Johann Sebastian Bach Wir eilen mt schwachen, Erbarme Dich from St Matthew Passion, Heinrich Schutz Geistliches Chormusik

The Giovanni Players will join the Giovanni Consort in a program that features sacred works from three generations of baroque masters. The Mass in A major is one of the most elegant and charming of Bach’s Lutheran Masses and a work that looks back to earlier more conservative forms and forward to the gallant style of the late eighteenth-century.

Composed for the private funeral of Maria Thérèse, the wife of Louis XIV, the exquisite motet De profundis clamavi was not only a personal tribute to a beloved royal patron, but a political and aesthetic statement for his own critics at the Court of the ‘Sun King’, as well as a treasure for all ages. At the end of his long life and prodigious career, Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) published a profound and formidable collection of Geistliches Chormusik in 1648. These motets are the foundation of his enduring reputation as one of masters of sacred music.

Conductor: David Gething 

Stabat Mater

Sunday 3 April, 2:30pm, St Patrick's Basillica, Fremantle

Works include: Domenico Scarlatti Stabat Mater, Marc-Antoine Charpentier La Reniement de St Pierre, Ralph Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs, Johann Sebastian Bach “O Lamm Gottes, Unschüldig” BWV 656 from The Eighteen for organ, Marcel Dupré “Crucifixion” from Symphonie Passion Op 23 for organ

Conductor: David Gething

For its first concert of the 2011 Concert Series the Giovanni Consort joins with Pipe Organ Plus Organist, Dominic Perissinotto and the renowned Baritone Sitiveni Talea to present Stabat Mater, a concert that will take audiences on a musical journey with religious overtones in celebration of Lent and Easter.

Charpentier’s short but exquisite Latin oratorio Le Reniement de St Pierre on the denial of St. Peter may have been intended for performance in a Holy Week church service, but it is among the most dramatic works he ever wrote. Set for double chorus and organ continuo, the Stabat Mater by Domenico Scarlatti is a sublime and evocative meditation of Christ’s journey to the Cross. The concert will also include organ music by Bach and Dupré then finish with the warm romantic melodies and rich sonorities of The Five Mystical Songs of Ralph Vaughan Williams.

15th Anniversary Concert

Friday 19 November, 7:30pm, St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth

Works include: Bach Singet dem Herrn, Harris Faire is the Heaven, Bring us O Lord God, Brahms Geistliches Lied, Duruflé Requiem and Four motets

The final concert in the 2010 Subscription series is a celebration of the 15 years of fine choral music presented by the Giovanni Consort. This outstanding programme contains two of the greatest choral masterworks ever written, the Requiem by Maurice Duruflé and the motet Singet dem Herrn by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Few composers have had such a complete understanding of the unique challenges and creative opportunities of writing for the pipe organ as French organist and composer Maurice Duruflé. Using the full expressive resources of both the choir and the pipe organ, and inspired by plainchant melodies, Duruflé created one of the great choral masterpieces of the 20th Century.

The exhilarating, majestic and uniquely challenging double choir motet Singet dem Herrn by Johann Sebastian Bach provides a unique counterpoint in this program to the profound and deeply moving Requiem by Maurice Duruflé. Bustling with vigour and energy, Singet dem Herrn is a contrapuntal tour de force and Bach’s crowning achievement in the motet genre.

This program also includes two miniature choral masterpieces by William Harris - Faire is the Heaven and Bring us O Lord God. Although written after the First World War, these works nostalgically evoke the mood of the halcyon days of Edwardian England and are amongst the most well-loved choral works of the extraordinary 20th Century English Choral repertoire.

Don’t miss this unique concert!