Barefoot Chamber Concerts (“an enterprise noted for both its quality and informality” – San Francisco Classical Voice) presents really good music in the right acoustic and without the formality of most classical music events.
Starting in 2018, Barefoot has presented an annual concert of viol consort music to mark the New Year. This year’s extravaganza features the consort music of the fabulous-but-unsung John Ward, the greatest composer you’ve probably never heard of. We don’t know why he was famous only in his own time, but he seems to have simply slipped from the high wire of celebrity soon after his death in 1638, never to climb back into the spotlight, until the revival of the viol consort and its music in the 20th century. Ward’s music is remarkable for its complexity, variety, and compositional daring.
This concert will be anchored by Ward’s celebrated fantasies for six viols, as well as five- ,four- and three- part fantasies, madrigals, and In Nomines.
The iconic Barefoot All-Stars (the Bay Area’s viol consort of choice) are joined, for this program, by the great treble viol player Wendy Gillespie. A Ward expert (among other things), Gillespie has the distinction of having recorded more consort music than anyone else in the world, and still remembering most of the music. In the lovely wooden acoustic of the Hillside Swedenborgian Church, this will be a musical treat to round off the holidays.
The concert will be without intermission and about 75 minutes long. For more information, visit barefootchamberconcerts.com. Tickets online (recommended) or at the door (if not sold out). Masks, proof of vaccination, and 6’ distancing will likely be required (see BarefootchamberConcerts.com website for update).