Lumina Women's Ensemble is joined by guests Tracy Cowart (gothic harp and alto), and UW faculty artist Carrie Shaw (soprano), in performing "The Celestial Woman," a program of chant and polyphony by composers including 9th-century Byzantine Abbess Kassia, 11th-c. Hildegard von Bingen, and Notre Dame Master Perotin.
Program
The Promise
Salve, mater salvatoris - Anon. English Sequence (12th century); Oxford Bodleian 343, folio Xv
Ave Maria, gracia plena - Anon. Codex Las Huelgas (c. 1300)
Sancta Maria (2:30) - John Dunstable (1390-1453)
The Vision
Marienleich (part 1) - Heinrich von Meissen, “Frauenlob” (c. 1250-1318)
Christina, the Martyr, Holding the Cross - Kassia (810-865)
Vevarimenon ton ophthalmon mu - Byzantine Chant
The Mother
Ave Maris Stella - Jacob Obrecht (c. 1450-1505)
There is no Rose - Anonymous (c. 1420); Trinity College, Cambridge manuscript
O Magnum Mysterium - Cristobal de Morales (1500-1553)
Angelus ad Virginem - Anon. 14th century, popular carol
The Daughter
Marienleich - von Meissen
Salvatoris Hodie - Perotin (1160-1245)
The Road to the Cross and Tomb
O Rubor - Sanguinis Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)
Stabat Iuxta Christi Crucem - Anon. Codex Las Huelgas (c. 1300)
Maria Magdalena - Michael Praetorius (1571-1621)
Queen of Heaven
Veni, virgo beatissima/Veni, sancte Spiritus - Montpellier Codex (c. 1250-1300)
Virgo sidus aureum - Anon. Codex Las Huelgas (c. 1300)
Alleluia (from the Mass for the Feast of the Assumption) - Gregorian Chant
Assumpta est Maria - Gregor Aichinger (1561-1628)
Program Notes
Fortunately for those of us in the 21st-century who like to dream about the distant past, a substantial amount of visual art from the Middle Ages in Europe and the former Byzantine Empire has survived to the present day, scattered in museums and collections all over the world, to give us hints about their world. The seemingly endless paintings of the Virgin Mary and women saints, sometimes painted alongside wealthy patronesses in a psychedelic feat of time travel, all with flawlessly serene brows, Instagram-ready skin and fabulously draping gowns, provide us with valuable information about the mental images that medieval creators and audiences were likely to have held in their minds when reading poetry and listening to music that in some way framed the idea of Women - both as characters in a story and as vessels of something divine. Today, Lumina with guests Tracy Cowart and Carrie Shaw are thrilled to present a wide-ranging program of music for treble voices and harp that will demonstrate many perspectives of ‘women in music’ from the era.
I’ve known the women of Lumina and Tracy for many years, and the thrilling part of our work together has been to imagine the way in which our voices can play with each other and what the effect can be. In some pieces, you will hear our sound as the serene, detached beauty of the impossibly perfect Lady, and in others, you may hear a hint of dance music creep in, bringing hints of secular vigor into texts that celebrate the Virgin in a more ecstatic way, and in still others, you will hear us sublimate our ‘selves’ in service of resonating the perfect math of the universe - a tiny window into God’s realm. In all cases, we hope you enjoy the exploration of the Celestial Woman.
The earliest works on our program are Byzantine chants, including one by the Byzantine-Greek abbess Kassia. Dramatic details of her life and the hymns that she authored and composed during her life have fortunately been passed down through the Byzantine church, which is how she, as a woman, has not disappeared into history, although the documents that substantiate her works and her biography today date from long after she was dead, so we can only speculate how much of what we now possess truly came from Kassia directly. Nevertheless, it is hard not to be drawn in by the story of a wealthy girl, courted by the Byzantine emperor, spurned then persecuted for her worship of icons, and in the end turned abbess of a convent where she wrote colorful and inspiring chants. While women did not play a role in leading liturgical music in the Byzantine church, we hope you will indulge our re-imagining of her adoration of Christina, the Martyr, as a work for a woman’s voice.
The other, perhaps more famous, abbess on the program is Hildegard von Bingen. Although Hildegard was beatified about 150 years after her death, her story was almost unknown for more than 800 years, until scholarly interest in her music and writings grew in the 20th century. In Hildegard, we have a woman writing music for other women, the women in her convent. Six hundred years after her life, there would be something of a tourist industry around hearing women in convents on the other side of a screen, performing virtuosic sacred music, but in her time, this was a matter purely of elevating the daily lives of the women under her care. Hildegard was a very successful nun (if there is such a thing), ascending to lead her convent and to found two others, and after her death, a monk collected her works for preservation. Her enormous collection of letters, philosophical writings, visions, and music miraculously survived the centuries (in one case, surviving a WWII bombing in a bank vault), and now inspire many composers to see in our past evidence of women finding ways to be creative despite the limitations of their gender in their time.
And we are, of course, performing a number of works with ‘Marian’ texts, that is, texts about the star of every medieval artist’s show, the Virgin Mary, some in Latin and some in vernacular. The forms are varied - sequences, antiphons, prayers, mass parts - and include the unison chant style that is familiar to fans of medieval music, but also two-, three-, and four-part polyphony. With treble voices, composing for four parts that share a range is an interesting compositional challenge. A choir with tenors and basses can space out melodic lines in a way that stay out of each others’ ways, if you will. A group of ‘like’ voices however weave tightly, making it sometimes difficult to tell who is singing what and when. The charm is in the exchange and rollercoaster sensation of alternately rising above the others and diving down into the texture.
Biographies
Lumina
Lumina is a professional women’s ensemble dedicated to the mystery, beauty, and hope inherent in music.
Our programming draws from a rich well of musical sources, including Medieval chants, Renaissance motets, folk song traditions, and works by living and local composers.
Our goal is to share the spiritual experience of music through performance, participation, and education.
Based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, we have collaborated with faith communities, schools, and choral organizations to present concerts, special church services, and educational programs.
Linda Kachelmeier, Artistic Director and Alto
Linda Kachelmeier is a singer, composer, pianist and conductor. Linda has performed with such diverse professional groups as The Dale Warland Singers, VocalEssence, Glorious Revolution Baroque, Dare to Breathe, and the internationally acclaimed early music group, The Rose Ensemble, of which she is a founding member.
Besides LUMINA, Linda can be seen as a freelance singer in various groups around the Twin Cities. As a composer, she was awarded a 2017 McKnight Fellowship, and is a two-time recipient of both the Jerome Composers Commissioning Program for Emerging Composers, and the Faith Partners residency through the American Composers Forum. Since 1991 she has been Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church in South St. Paul.
Angela Grundstad, Soprano
Angela Grundstad hails from Iowa, where she started her musical journey performing with groups such as the Des Moines Vocal Arts Ensemble, StageWest Theatre Company, Soli Deo Gloria Cantorum, Des Moines Metro Opera, and as adjunct voice faculty at Drake University. She received her Bachelor's Degree from Simpson College where she was a member of the internationally known Madrigal Singers, and her Master of Music Degree from Louisiana State University.
Angela started singing with Lumina Women's ensemble when the group was founded in 2014. She is also a member of the Mirandola Ensemble and Consortium Carrissimi. Angela is very fortunate to have performed with Vocal Essence Ensemble Singers, Glorious Revolution Baroque, Magpies and Ravens, and various other freelance groups in the Twin Cities. She is currently a section leader and voice instructor at Holy Family Catholic Church in St. Louis Park.
Kim Sueoka, Soprano
Kim is an active performer and teaching artist with Lumina, Lau Hawaiian Collective, and COMPAS. She also delights in her work as a music enrichment facilitator at EXPO Elementary School in St. Paul and a staff singer and vocal coach at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis. She is an artist-in-residence at Hamline University’s Center for Global Environmental Education and an associate teaching artist with Kairos Alive.
Kim received bachelor's and master's degrees in vocal performance at The University of Evansville and the University of Minnesota. She has performed nationally and internationally with The Rose Ensemble and appeared as a guest artist with the Neuss Chamber Orchestra, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Ames Chamber Artists, Des Moines Choral Society, and the Flint Hills International Children’s Festival.
Her solo recordings include Clear or Cloudy: The Lute Songs of Dowland with lutenist Phillip Rukavina, Wai: Hawaiian Fresh Water Songs with Lau Hawaiian Collective, and The River Inside of Trees with composers Todd Harper and Paul Cantrell.
Tracy Cowart, Alto and harp
A musical omnivore living up to her childhood nickname “the goat,” mezzo-soprano Tracy Cowart enjoys a wide range of musical interests, from twelfth-century monophony to American old-time music. Praised by the New York Times as “the real attraction” with a voice that is “light and lithe,” Tracy has performed with period ensembles including Apollo’s Fire, La Donna Musicale, Musica Sacra, the Newberry Consort, Rose of the Compass, Severall Friends, and the Washington Bach Consort. Upcoming recording projects include The Gentle Shepherd (the earliest extant Scottish ballad opera) with Makaris, and neo-medieval arrangements of Hildegard von Bingen and Herrad von Hohenburg with Freelance Nun, with whom she also continues to explore 18th-century New England Anthems. Also known for her interpretations of new music, Tracy has performed with the Great Noise Ensemble, sung cabaret with the Richmond Festival of Music, and toured with Weird Uncle, an experimental group that fuses medieval modes, jug band, and electronica.
Tracy received her B.S.B.A. in Business Administration from American University, her M.M. in Early Music from the Longy School of Music, and her D.M.A. in Historical Performance Practice from Case Western Reserve University; she is currently faculty at the Amherst Early Music Festival and at Fordham University, where she teaches voice and co-led the Collegium Musicum. She has been a guest-artist/lecturer at Pennsylvania State University, Fairmont State University, Bucknell University, and the Society for Seventeenth Century Music. Tracy is also an avid forager, amateur herbalist, and a card-carrying member of the NY Mycological Society.
Carrie Shaw, Soprano
Praised in the New York Times “as graceful vocally as she was in her movements”, “consistently stylish” (Boston Globe), and as a “cool, precise soprano” (Chicago Tribune), Carrie Henneman Shaw is a two-time McKnight Fellowship for Performing Musicians winner (2010, 2017). She has premiered major works by such Minnesota composers as Jocelyn Hagen and Abbie Betinis, whose annual Christmas carols she records for Minnesota Public Radio, and sung American premieres by such composers as Georg Friedrich Haas, Hans Thomalla, and Augusta Read Thomas. In addition to her work as an interpreter of contemporary works, Carrie specializes in music of the 17th century and has performed operatic roles with one of America’s leading Baroque opera companies, Boston Early Music Festival. Carrie is a member of Chicago’s Ensemble Dal Niente, Quince Ensemble, and Kwan Pauly Shaw trio. She holds degrees in English and voice performance from Lawrence University and a doctorate from the University of Minnesota. She is acting chair of voice performance at the University of Washington in Seattle.