TONOS DEL SUR PROGRAM NOTES

Close your eyes and imagine that you are in Puebla, one of colonial Mexico’s most important cities for music and the arts. Further, you are seated (though likely standing) in Puebla’s Santísima Trinidad convent church, admiring its ornate seventeenth-century altars. The sound of women musicians performing vernacular (Spanish) sacred music surrounds you, but you cannot see the performers. Their voices and instrumental accompaniment emanate from the back of the church, behind a grated choir structure, and their bodies are concealed further because they are located behind a curtain. The sound resonates throughout the reverberant church.

Such was how we imagine early modern New Spanish citizens encountering the music performed in front of you today in this concert of convent villancicos, whose manuscripts were copied for performance by the choir of nuns in the Santísima Trinidad convent. In nuns’ cloistered convents, as well as in the cathedrals and churches of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New Spain, as colonial Mexico was called, and across the Ibero-American world, the villancico was the popular sacred song genre performed to elevate the solemnity of the most important feast days of the liturgical calendar. Villancico texts were set in the vernacular by poets and notated musically by composers. Both artists worked within the traditional Iberian verse-refrain (copla/estribillo) form that characterized the early modern villancico. The coplas could be set in a different rhythm, meter, texture, and/or ensemble size to distinguish their sound from the estribillo, while the texts of the coplas could be fairly straightforward and explanatory, and in a more consistent poetic meter, in comparison to the more allegorical texts and freer meter of the estribillos. Try to notice any difference in sonority and text delivery between the coplas and the estribillos of the villancicos performed today.

The villancico’s music-poetic form was employed to praise regional patron saints and universally venerated Christian figures alike. This performance consists of villancicos for the Eucharist and for the Virgin Mary, the two most important devotions for early modern nuns. Cloistered nuns were considered brides of Christ. And one way to experience the presence of Christ prior to dying and being reunited with him in heaven was through the sacrament of the Eucharist. By consuming the body of Christ present in the communion host, usually in the form of a wafer consecrated and delivered by a priest, nuns relived their mystical honey moon celebrated on the day they professed and were initiated into the convent. The most important feast that celebrates the Eucharist is Corpus Christi, the Feats of the Body of Christ, commemorated annually as a moveable feast, that is, a feast with no fixed date, occurring on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday with an Octave celebration eight days later. The Eucharistic villancicos performed today would have been very appropriate for this feast, and, as you will note in the texts to these, they tend to focus on believing in the body of Christ within the host without actually seeing a human body present in it, only seeing bread, or the wafer.

The Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ, is at the center of the villancicos in the second half of the program, including villancicos sung at Christmas in which Mary is praised as the mother of the newborn or she herself is speaking and adoring Christ. The Virgin Mary was the model saint for nuns, and especially for the nuns of the Order of the Immaculate Conception, to which the nuns of the Santísima Trinidad convent in Puebla belonged. This most unusual doctrine had to be sworn to and defended by nuns. It states that Mary’s soul was conceived without sin—immaculately—since the beginning of time at the Creation in order for her to be worthy of becoming the mother of Christ the redeemer. Through this doctrine, Mary is considered a co-redeemer in the eyes of early modern Catholics. As imitators of the Virgin Mary’s obedience, servitude, and purity, cloistered nuns too joined that hierarchy of intercession for humanity’s redemption when they sang these villancicos for the edification and salvation of the secular world that surrounded their convent.

INDIVIDUAL BIOGRAPHIES

Violinist Sarah Cranor is passionate about the freedom of sonic possibilities found in both historical and contemporary music. She is acting Concertmaster / Principal Second Violin with the West Texas Symphony, a member of the Permian Basin and Chasqui Quartets, and directs Tonos del Sur. Sarah’s recent collaborative highlights include the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Sphere Ensemble, Omaha Symphony, Bourbon Baroque, BachAkademie Charlotte, and guest concertmaster of the Bloomington and Lafayette Symphony Orchestras. Recently released recordings include “The Colorful Telemann” with Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra for NAXOS Music, “Fair and Princely Branches: Music for the Jacobean Princes” with Renaissance violin band The Queen’s Rebels, and the world premiere of Kurt Vonnegut’s Requiem with Voces Novae.Sarah holds a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Her doctoral research focuses on the music of Santiago Billoni, chapelmaster at the Durango Cathedral, Mexico, from 1749-1756.

Tenor Blake Beckemeyer thrives on newly-composed works as well as small-ensemble renderings of sixteenth- through eighteenth-century German and British compositions. He is frequently seen with Miami-based Seraphic Fire and D.C. ensemble The Thirteen with highlights including Monteverdi Vespers, Carl Orff Carmina Burana with the New World Symphony, and Tallis Spem in alium. Also this season, Beckemeyer made his debut with Washington Bach Consort in their premiere of a Weston cantata for choir and baroque orchestra and his first Evangelist in Bach St. John Passion in Indianapolis with Christ Church Cathedral and Indy Baroque. He holds degrees from Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music and DePauw University.

Soprano Shannon Barry Beckemeyer has interests spanning historical performance, vocology, and choral singing in addition to her roles on the operatic and concert stage. Most recently, she performed in Bach cantatas 101 and 215 as a concertist, Couperin Leçons de ténèbres, and Bach John Passion. She has worked with conductors Helmuth Rilling and Kathy Saltzman Romey, also singing with ensembles such as the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project, Christ Church Cathedral, Second Presbyterian Church Beecher Singers, Aire Borne Group, and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Indianapolis. She holds a M. M. In Vocal Performance from IU’s Jacobs School of Music and a B.A. in Biochemistry from DePauw University.

Dr. Carolann Buff (below, who you will see on the stage but not in the program booklet photo) is a scholar, teacher, and musician regarded for both her research on late medieval and early Renaissance motets as well as expertise in historical performance. She is a founding member of the internationally renowned medieval trio Liber unUsualis and recorded two critically acclaimed CDs of fourteenth-century polyphony with the ensemble, Unrequited: Machaut and the French Ars Nova and Flyleaves: Music in English Manuscripts. Buff has toured around the world with the Boston Camerata and has recorded with the Renaissance choir Cut Circle on CDs featuring works by Josquin, De Orto, and Du Fay. Buff has also performed with the women’s ensemble Tapestry and can be heard on their recording Sapphire Night, which received the 2005 ECHO Klassik prize in Germany. Buff is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at Indiana University.

Top prize winner ex aequo of the Ninth Mae and Irving Jurow International Harpsichord Competition 2021, fortepianist and harpsichordist Anastasia Chin is in frequent demand as soloist, chamber musician, and continuo player on the harpsichord, fortepiano and organ. Praised for her eloquent and sensitive performances, she was one of three finalists in the 2018 Berkeley Festival International Early Piano Competition, and is a regular performer on the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project series, the Bloomington Early Music Festival, and the Las Aves ensemble. Anastasia recently graduated with a Doctor of Music in Early Music from IU’s Jacobs School of Music, where she studied with Elisabeth Wright.

Kevin Flynn is pursuing his Doctor of Music in Cello Performance at Indiana University as the Eva Heinitz Memorial Scholar and as assistant to his teacher, Emilio Colón, and studies baroque cello under Joanna Blendulf. He received a Master of Music in Cello Performance at Indiana University, and a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Cello Performance, studying under Pablo Mahave-Veglia, and in Philosophy from Grand Valley State University. Performance highlights include a 2-week concert tour of Puerto Rico with the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico, and the release of the GVSU New Music Ensemble’s CD, Dawn Chorus, on Innova Recordings; as well as daily performances for his cat, Bean.

Conductor and violinist Alejandro Gómez Guillén is passionate about sharing music in a way that is compelling, uplifting, and educational. Currently serving as Omaha Symphony’s assistant conductor, and music director of Denver’s Sphere Ensemble, he recently completed seven seasons as artistic director and conductor of Bloomington Symphony Orchestra. Having held a successful tenure as associate conductor of Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, he also served as a Freeman fellow with Chicago Sinfonietta, associate conductor of Boulder Symphony, and music director of Cantabile. An accomplished baroque and modern player, Alejandro leads Mozart and Haydn concertos from the violin, and served as acting concertmaster/principal second violin of West Texas Symphony, and member of the Permian Basin String Quartet and Chasqui Quartet. He has also been concertmaster of Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra, Amherst Early Music Festival, Junges Stuttgarter Bach Ensemble, and principal viola at the Oregon Bach Festival’s Berwick Academy for Historical Performance.

Aruban-American mezzo-soprano, Erin Koolman is a doctoral candidate in the studio of Patricia Stiles at The Jacobs School of Music in Indiana University. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Music Education and Bachelor of Fine Arts in Vocal Performance from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2012 and a Master of Music from Kansas State University in 2015. Erin’s past performances include Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Chicago, Trial by Jury, White Christmas, Hansel and Gretel (Hansel), Dialogues des Carmélites (Mère Jeanne), La Purpura de la Rosa (Cintia/Celfa), La Traviata (Annina), and Ainadamar (Lorca). Erin has performed scenes from Die Zauberflöte (Dritte Dame), Lakmé (Malika), and I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Romeo). Since August of 2017 she has served as staff singer for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Indianapolis where she is often a featured soloist, most notably in J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion, Magnificat, and Handel’s Messiah.

Danur Kvilhaug is active as a lutenist and vocalist, performing regularly throughout North America. Recent engagements include performances with the Newberry Consort, Les Delices, Bourbon Baroque, Tonos del Sur, and the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, he has performed at the Madison Early Music Festival, the Bloomington Early Music Festival, and with the Red River Lyric Opera’s 2019 performance of Francesco Cavalli’s La Calisto. In addition to performing, he has held several teaching appointments, teaching courses in music history and music theory at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and The University of Oklahoma. He received his MM in Musicology from The University of Oklahoma, as well as an MM and Performance Diploma in historical performance at Indiana University under the tutelage of Nigel North. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in historical performance practice at Case Western Reserve University under the tutelage of Charles Weaver.

Howell Petty, soprano, (below, who you will see on the stage but not in the program booklet photo) earned their bachelor's degree at the University of Oregon before pursuing a Master’s in Musicology at IU Bloomington. They will be staying at IU to start their PhD in Musicology in the fall. Howell’s most recent performances have been with the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project, as well as the Unsung Opera Project, where they made their operatic debut as Henri in “Un mariage par quiproquo.” Future performances will include IU’s summer production of Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas, in addition to various medieval chamber music projects.

Cesar Favila is assistant professor of musicology at UCLA. This academic year, he was the Susan McClary and Robert Walser Fellow in Music Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies and a recipient of the Institute for Citizens & Scholars Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award. His research and teaching attend to the intersections of music, religion, gender, and race with respect to Mexican music from colonial New Spain to the contemporary Chicano experience. He is the author of Immaculate Sounds: The Musical Lives of Nuns in New Spain, the first book to investigate women’s music-making in colonial Latin America, forthcoming this fall in the “Currents in Latin American and Iberian Music Series” of Oxford University Press.

Paul Feller is a Ph.D. musicology candidate at Northwestern University and a lecturer at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has presented and published on topics such as Mayan musicians in the sixteenth-century Guatemalan Highlands, eighteenth-century music-making in the cathedral of Santiago, Chile, the representation of Jewishness in seventeenth-century Italy, and the opera-related practices within the Jewish communities of the Netherlands and Germany. His research on colonial music in Latin America was recently awarded an Otto Mayer-Serra Award Honorable Mention. Paul's recent work on Jewish-Christian musical exchanges in the early-modern world has received the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music Irene Alm Memorial Prize and has been funded by the international Jewish Translation and Cultural Transfer in Early Modern Europe Research Project. Next academic year, he has been selected as a Northwestern Presidential Fellow and a Crown Family Center Fellow to support his dissertation research.