Out Now! Blue Heron releases latest album
Christmas & New Year’s in 15th-Century France & Burgundy
Music by Guillaume Du Fay, Johannes Regis, Jacob Obrecht, Josquin Desprez, Antoine Brumel, and others.
Blue Heron will also present the program in candlelit holiday concerts on Dec. 20 and 21 in Cambridge, MA.
Order the CD at blueheron.org
Link to CD liner notes booklet
Link to Blue Heron high-res images
Contact: Bobby Pape, executive director
617-960-7956 (office) · 585-739-6265 (cell)
bobby@blueheron.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – The Boston-based early music vocal ensemble Blue Heron, directed by Scott Metcalfe, announces the release of Christmas & New Year’s in 15th-Century France & Burgundy. The new album, available now from Blue Heron’s website for purchase on CD or as a digital download, captures the dark days of Advent at the winter solstice, the joy of Christmas, and the courtly splendor of New Year’s festivities in 15th-Century France and Burgundy. The new album is distributed nationally, internationally, and via streaming services by Naxos of America and Naxos Music UK.
In addition to the new CD, Blue Heron will bring this program to life at their annual Christmas concerts on Friday, Dec. 20, at 8pm and Saturday, Dec. 21, at 3pm and 8pm, at First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, at 11 Garden Street, Cambridge MA.
“This program has long been a favorite of both performers and listeners” said Scott Metcalfe, Blue Heron’s artistic director. “The music of Du Fay, Regis, Obrecht, and their contemporaries is at once intricate, sensuous, and deeply moving, and offers endless treasures of sound and meaning to the ear. We hope this album brings the joy, mystery, and grandeur of the holiday season to life for our listeners.”
Christmas & New Year’s in 15th-Century France & Burgundy is Blue Heron’s 14th album and follows another musical compendium of 15th-Century masterworks, the critically acclaimed Johannes Ockeghem: Complete Songs, Volume 2, released earlier this year and named a Gramophone magazine Editor’s Choice recording in June. Early Music Review proclaimed, “it is difficult to imagine anything more beautiful,” and Fanfare magazine called it “a superb disc from every angle.”
CONCERT INFORMATION
Experience Christmas & New Year’s in 15th-Century France & Burgundy at Blue Heron’s annual holiday concerts! The performances feature a chancel lit by candles, according to Blue Heron tradition.
Christmas & New Year’s in 15th-Century France & Burgundy
Fri., Dec. 20, at 8pm, Sat., Dec. 21, at 3pm and 8pm
First Church in Cambridge, Congregational
11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Tickets: $10-$90
Order tickets at (617) 960-7956 or blueheron.org
CD INFORMATION
Track Titles
Advent
- Plainchant O clavis David
- Jacob Obrecht Factor orbis
- Plainchant O virgo virginum
- Josquin Desprez (?) O virgo virginum
- Guillaume Du Fay Conditor alme siderum
- Antoine Brumel Ave Maria gratia dei plena
Christmas
- Johannes Regis O admirabile commercium
- Du Fay Letabundus
- Johannes Ciconia Gloria Spiritus et alme
- Brumel Nato canunt omnia
New Year’s Day
- Nicolas Grenon La plus belle et doulce figure
- Guillaume Malbecque Dieu vous doinst bon jour et demy
- Anonymous Auxce bon youre delabonestren
- Arnold de Lantins Amours servir et honnourer
- Baude Cordier Dame excellent ou sont bonté, scavoir
- Cordier Ce jour de l’an qui maint doist estrenier
BLUE HERON
Cody Bowers, Kim Leeds, Sophie Michaux, Margot Rood, Elisa Sutherland, cantus
Corey Dalton Hart, Jason McStoots, Jacob Perry, James Reese, Aaron Sheehan,
Sumner Thompson, tenor & contratenor
Cameron Beauchamp, Paul Guttry, bassus
Grant Herreid, lute
Laura Jeppesen, rebec & fiddle
Scott Metcalfe, harp & fiddle, artistic director
ABOUT BLUE HERON
BLUE HERON has been acclaimed by The Boston Globe as “one of the Boston music community’s indispensables” and hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker for its “expressive intensity.” The ensemble ranges over a wide repertoire from plainchant to new music, with particular specialties in 15th-century Franco-Flemish polyphony and early 16th-century English sacred music, and is committed to vivid live performance informed by the study of original source materials and historical performance practices. Blue Heron offers a catalog of twelve recordings and is the only group outside of Europe to receive the Gramophone Classical Music Award for Early Music (2018). Blue Heron’s CD Johannes Ockeghem: Complete Songs, Volume I was named to the first Bestenliste (Quarterly Critics’ Choice) of 2020 by the prestigious Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik (German Record Critics’ Award). Its multi-season project to perform the complete works of the great 15th-century composer Johannes Ockeghem, Ockeghem@600, wound up in March 2023, making Blue Heron the only ensemble in North America, quite possibly anywhere in the world, to have accomplished this feat.
For more information and photos, go to www.blueheron.org.
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