Many developments in music are forward-looking, with composers searching for unique techniques that will help them stand out. Yet other times composers will turn to the distant past for inspiration, taking instruments or forms from bygone eras and giving them new voice in the present. Whether creating modern music for the harpsichord or lute, or providing fresh facelifts for centuries-old church traditions, composers continue to mine the past for revelation relevant today, a sort of resurrection that reveals the Old Made New.
– Naxos Music Library, April 1, 2015
Antico Moderno’s mission is to promote new music for period instruments, encouraging composers to rethink centuries-old forms, musical, literary and philosophical ideas, and make them relevant to today’s audiences. Our next concert program “La Divisione” on May 15, at First Lutheran Church explores the meaning of division, in music, philosophy, theology and literature in works by old composers such as Biber, Corelli, Melchior Hoffmann, and contemporary works by Catherine Balch, Bálint Karosi, Ian Gottlieb and Robert Honstein.
Our human existence is mostly spent as a constant preparation for the future, using experiences, memories and influences from our past. It is indeed hard to grasp and comprehend the present, a sort of short-term past of few seconds, which is not yet thwarted by our faulty memories. We occupy most of our time to prepare for our future, often ignoring the present, as if we were preparing for eternal existence. Yet, we all know that our existence will eventually come to an end. Religion, spirituality, art, music and philosophy have all struggled with these questions for centuries.
“La divisione” features works that explore divisions of past and present, the memories and facts, life and death in a program that explore different aspects of these questions with works spanning from the 11th to the 21st centuries.
7 p.m. Pre-concert talk and open Q & A with composers and musicians.
