catching up on the BEMF
Jun. 19th, 2017 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauradi7dwMy total was only three concerts, all of them Fringe, but I was very happy with all of them. On Friday, I went to hear the USC Collegium's focus on the songbook of Anna of Cologne, interspersed with some shawm + sackbut pieces. Early 1500s, an outcome of the Modern Devotion movement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devotio_Moderna
The music was great. One of the singers wasn't as good as the others, but they are students (the two faculty members played shawms), so she may not be as experienced. It was at 1st Church in Boston, the same location as the 2015 USC performance. That one was packed. This time there were only about fifty people in the audience. That sounds like a fair number, but since the venue can hold many more, it seemed sparse. I wonder whether it was time of day. Since there are 11 PM concerts, some people might not be able to drag themselves out in time for a 10 AM performance the next day. One person showed up at about 10:40, and was shocked that he only heard one piece - their whole program only took a little more than 45 minutes. An hour is not uncommon for a fringe program, but maybe he didn't know that. As we were leaving, he asked for his donation back. I presume he got it.
The music was great. One of the singers wasn't as good as the others, but they are students (the two faculty members played shawms), so she may not be as experienced. It was at 1st Church in Boston, the same location as the 2015 USC performance. That one was packed. This time there were only about fifty people in the audience. That sounds like a fair number, but since the venue can hold many more, it seemed sparse. I wonder whether it was time of day. Since there are 11 PM concerts, some people might not be able to drag themselves out in time for a 10 AM performance the next day. One person showed up at about 10:40, and was shocked that he only heard one piece - their whole program only took a little more than 45 minutes. An hour is not uncommon for a fringe program, but maybe he didn't know that. As we were leaving, he asked for his donation back. I presume he got it.
