Early Music Ensemble Presents Fall Concert "Aspects of Love"

Virginia Tech Early Music Ensemble to open its 2005-2006 season with a program of Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque favorites, under the direction of John Howell. The concert is at 3 p.m. on Sunday, November 6, in the Recital Salon of Squires Student Center on the Virginia Tech campus. It is free of charge and open to the public.

A selection of sacred music including Medieval chant, organum, conductus, and Sch?tz's lovely motet "Selig sind die Toten" explores aspects of the love of God and the love and veneration of the Saints of the Church. Another selection of Renaissance pieces explores different approaches to the love of a man and woman. The pieces leads up to a scene from Monteverdi's last opera, "L'Incoronatione de Poppea," in which the teenaged Valetto and Damigella, sung by Brian Vorees and Anne Butler, discuss innocent young love.

The later Baroque and its musical aspects is well represented by instrumental music by Pachelbel, Handel, and Corelli's Church Sonata No. 1, featuring violinist Ashley Keffer. Harpsichordist Daniel Corneliussen will play one of the earliest surviving Medieval pieces for keyboard, and the entire company will join together for Orlando Gibbons' "Cries of London?.

This program will be repeated as part of the School of the Arts outreach program at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynchburg on Sunday, November 13, and at Warm Hearth Retirement Village in Blacksburg. For more information on the performance, please contact School of the Arts at (540) 231-5200.