Music

Folger Consort Artistic Director Robert Eisenstein leads a lively seminar that offers a sneak peek at the music performed in the Folger Consort’s upcoming Mass for Christmas Eve: Baroque Music for the Season.

Composed in 1694, Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s "Messe de Minuit pour Noel" is based on captivating, folksong-like noels steeped in the composer’s characteristic balance of irresistible dance rhythms and sophisticated harmonies. The Consort will complement Charpentier’s Mass with haunting English "Balulalows" for voices set amid joyful instrumental concertos by Vivaldi and other Italian baroque masters.

Folger Consort Artistic Director Robert Eisenstein leads a lively seminar that offers a sneak peek at the music performed in the Folger Consort’s upcoming "The Love Birds: Chaucer’s A Parlement of Foules."

Geoffrey Chaucer’s charming and trenchant A Parlement of Foules contains the first reference to St. Valentine as patron saint of lovers. The 14th-century poet's vision of avian politics will be interspersed with bracing and intricate music of his times from England and France, perfectly mirrored by the newly-composed music of composer Juri Seo.

Folger Consort Artistic Director Robert Eisenstein leads a lively virtual seminar that offers a sneak peek at the music performed in the Folger Consort’s upcoming "Kings and Commonwealth: The English Civil War."

The music from the court of King James I reflects the political and religious upheavals in early seventeenth century England. The Folger Consort will perform political ballads of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, along with instrumental music from both James’ and Charles I’s courts and swaggering and silly political songs from Thomas D’Urfey’s Pills to Purge Melancholy.