Programs

Monks Singing Pagans
New program for 2016–2017 directed by Benjamin Bagby

Introduction

When we think of medieval monks and their musical lives, the first thing to come to mind is Gregorian chant, the solemn and ritual song which accompanied the monk's liturgical day, week, season and year. But a closer look at medieval monastic manuscripts from the 9th to 12th centuries shows that many monks were singing other songs as well, with texts which were sometimes anything but Christian. The medieval monastic and cathedral schools of medieval Europe were great centers of learning and focal points of intellectual life. For all monks and clerics, who were native speakers of European vernacular languages, it was essential to become bilingual, to speak, think, perhaps even to read and write in Latin, the language of their faith, the liturgy, the sciences, philosophy and literature. And this crucial link to Latin could best be enhanced by studying 'ancient' texts which had survived: Roman authors, poets, dramatists, teachers, philosophers and historians were studied and memorized, and many of these were also sung. The survival of these songs, sometimes very fragmentary, provide us with a rich treasure-house of European vocal art, and witnesses to a vibrant culture where the Christian monk gave voice to his pagan ancestors, passing on stories and ideas which resonate to this day.

For this new program in The Lost Songs Project, Sequentia's director Benjamin Bagby collaborates with noted scholar Sam Barrett (Cambridge University) to reconstruct classical texts which were sung in European monastic centers and cathedral schools between the 9th and 12th centuries. This Boethian project, which fits perfectly into the larger performance focus of Sequentia, The Lost Songs Project, has been widened to include other musically notated classical texts from the 9th-12th centuries, as well as pagan texts in Old High German and Old English, and forms the basis for the new program, Monks Singing Pagans.

There are songs about Fortuna, Dido and Cleopatra, Hercules and the old gods, as they would have been enjoyed by monastic intellectuals around the turn of the first millennium. Charms and incantations by unknown pagan authors are also performed. The deeply moving poems from Boethius's 'Consolation of Philosophy' (early 6th century, set to music in the 11th century) will be featured, in reconstructions by Benjamin Bagby and Hanna Marti, made together with Sam Barrett.

This new program is performed by the Sequentia trio pictured above: Norbert Rodenkirchen (flutes), Hanna Marti (voice, harp) and Benjamin Bagby (voice, harps).

Background information on the preparation of this program

In 2014, the distinguished musicologist Dr. Sam Barrett (Cambridge University) proposed that Benjamin Bagby and Sequentia collaborate with him on a new scholarly and performance-based project involving one of his special areas of expertise: the notated poems (metra) found in medieval manuscripts of the medieval classic, the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius. The work was based on Barrett's two-volume study and transcription of the Boethian metra published in 2013. A first working meeting took place at Harvard University in November 2014, followed by a residency and symposium at Ohio State University in Columbus in late April 2015. Vocalist/harpist Hanna Marti joined the project for another working session at Cambridge in September 2015. The final working sessions, with the Sequentia trio in residence, took place at Cambridge University in April 2016, including workshops, teaching, and the first public performances of the Boethian songs. Following this, the program Monks Singing Pagans had its world premiere at Dartmouth College on 28 April 2016.

Full information here

Upcoming Concerts

12 January 2025, 4:00 pm
Gregorius: The Holy Sinner
Music Before 1800
New York City, NY / USA 

17 January 2025, 7:30 pm
Gregorius: The Holy Sinner
Early Music Vancouver
Vancouver, BC / Canada

18 January 2025, 7:30 pm
Gregorius: The Holy Sinner
Early Music Society of the Islands
Victoria, BC / Canada

25 January 2025, 7:30 pm
Gregorius: The Holy Sinner
The Toronto Consort
Toronto, ON / Canada

30 January 2025, 7:30 pm
Gregorius: The Holy Sinner
Penn Live Arts
Philadelphia, PA / USA

6 & 7 February 2025
Beowulf: The Epic in Performance
Moss Arts Center
Blacksburg, VA / USA

14 February 2025
Kulturzentrum Paterskirche, Kempen
Musen der Sphären

See full concert schedule

News

Benjamin Bagby's teaching activities in 2019

In March 2019, Benjamin will give two weekend courses on the solo songs of Philippe le Chancelier (d. 1236). The courses are being hosted by the Centre de Musique Médiévale de Paris. Dates: 9-10 and 30-31 March.
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After retiring from his teaching position at the University of Paris - Sorbonne, where he taught between 2005 and 2018 in the professional masters program, Benjamin Bagby continues to travel widely in 2019 to teach practical workshops for young professionals:

Folkwang Universität der Künste (Essen-Werden, Germany).
Benjamin has joined the faculty of this renowned masters program for liturgical chant performance and medieval music. The dates of his courses in 2019: 5-7 April; 26-28 April; 17-19 May; 30 May–01 June.
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For the second year in a row, Benjamin will teach an intensive course in the 8th International Course on Medieval Music Performance (Besalú, Spain): Songs of the troubadours (for singers and instrumentalists).
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Amherst Early Music Festival (Connecticut College, New London CT) 21-28 July:
An intensive course on the solo cansos of the Occitan troubadours, with a focus on songs from the great Milan songbook Bibl. Ambr. R71 sup. (for singers and instrumentalists).
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