From the Director

In the spring of 2012, I met Loren Tice, an extraordinary pianist teaching at Transylvania University, where I had just been hired to teach voice and direct the women’s choir. He recruited me to sing with Musick’s Company for their spring concert, and I found myself surrounded by a warm and welcoming group of musicians. Around that time, I was also busy serving as the music director at Woodland Christian Church and occupied with being a new mother. A few years later, I asked Loren if I could come and sing again and he countered with “How about you conduct Musick’s Company?” I was stunned and delighted! 

 

Over the last decade, we have presented concerts featuring the music of the giants of the medieval, Renaissance and Baroque period as well as lesser known gems, a number of which are composed by women. We have presented an abridged, concert version of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo; celebrated the music of different regions of Europe, including Scandinavia, Spain and Eastern Europe; introduced listeners to the music of the Moravians and Shakers in America and danced through the summer solstice with excerpts from Rameau’s ballet, Les fêtes d'Hébé.

 

At each of these concerts we see familiar faces of supporters who have returned for nearly five decades, some making our Christmas concert part of their holiday traditions. Founding members sing in our choir and advise on our Board of Directors, selflessly dedicated to the success of the Center. We have welcomed passionate and talented new musicians who lead the way ahead. The Center for Old Music in the New World is a hub for a devoted community of music lovers who support a performance ensemble unique in the state as the only one solely dedicated to early music.

 

Although I never met Donna Boyd, founder of the Center for Old Music in the New World and director of Musick’s Company from 1977 to 2011, I can sense her legacy. She possessed a rare breadth and depth of knowledge of early music; she sang, played, taught and directed with great energy and focus. I am privileged to care for her ensemble and help it grow.

 

More than any other era in the Western tradition, what is classified as “early music” offers a medium through which we can connect to the past; the instruments alone transport us immediately because we hear so little that resembles those timbres. Early music offers a space wherein we experience a measure of contemplation and peace that so many of us desperately need. In this space, we imagine ourselves in a monastery at compline, at a lively wedding dance in a castle with fires blazing, caroling or wassailing through the snow from the blacksmith’s to the door of a nearby manor, or singing madrigals in springtime at a tavern. We are lifted out of our troubles into a dream. 

 

I hope you will join us for the tranquility, the romance and the excitement we offer at the Center for Old Music in the New World.