Arizona Early Music opens its new year on Saturday, Jan. 10, with a concert that takes seriously the notion of early music.
The Cleveland-based medieval music ensemble Trobár is going way, way back to the 13th century with its "Songbook for a King," based on the "Manuscrit du Roi," an anthology of ancient French music.
Over the centuries, songs have been added and subtracted from the anthology, which, according to AEM program notes, was originally compiled in 1250.
There were no recordings in the 13th century and very little documentation to help today's musicians navigate the score. Which is why medieval music often seems a bit academic at first glance.
"Medieval music is really a specialized field unto itself," said AEM Executive Director Dominic Giardini, and "Manuscrit du Roi," while still played today, is "not always at the forefront of performance culture."
There is no handbook or template for performing the songs, so Trobár and other ensembles have to take a deep dive into the music and the times, comparing performance styles and scouring any data they can dig up to shed light on how to approach the music. But once they figure it out, Giardini said, the audience will discover that "it's great songs, it's great dance music."
"Since the music is so simple to perform, there's almost a folk-esque quality to listening to it," he explained, calling the music "tuneful and dancelike."
This is the first time in several years that AEM has had a concert that featured music this old.
"Most of the time, we're living between the late 15th and mid-18th centuries," Giardini said. "Occasionally later and sometimes earlier, but I think this is probably the earliest program, historically speaking, that we've done since the pandemic."
Trobár will have four musicians for the concert, and all but one of them sings in addition to playing instruments. The players include two of the ensemble's founders, Allison Monroe and Karin Weston, vocalist Nathan Dougherty and Sian Ricketts.
Saturday's concert at St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church, 4440 N. Campbell Ave., begins at 3 p.m. Tickets are $36.05 through azearlymusic.org.
