The Concert Series at Lenoir-Rhyne University will present a concert by the ensemble group Heinavanker on Sunday, Oct. 3, at 3:00 p.m. at P.E. Monroe Auditorium on campus. Heinavanker is a vocal ensemble the activity of which is inspired by older sacred music.
The concert is free, and the L-R Friends of Music invite the entire community to experience this group.
Heinavanker (The Haywain), a music vocal ensemble from Tallinn, Estonia, has performed since 1988. The ensemble is named after the famous altarpiece by Hieronymus Bosch, which depicts a huge wagonload of hay rolling through a world vexed by agony and greed. From atop the Haywain, angels make beautiful music to heal the misery below.
Since 1988, the Heinavanker ensemble has undertaken many concert tours: including Finland, France, Germany, Poland, Scandinavia, America and Switzerland. The Heinavanker ensemble has also participated in many festivals, such as the Moscow Early Music Festival, the Aarhus Festival (Denmark), the Summer of Music in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany), the EXPO 2000 (Hanover, Germany), the European Middle Ages Festival in Horsens and the Vendsyssel Festival (Denmark), the Falsterbonäset Sacred Music Festival and the Lysekil Sacred Music Festival (Sweden), the Haapavesi Folk Festival (Finland) among many others. Known for their exquisite vocal quality, amazing blends, and perfect intonation, this group embodies the qualities that delight us when we listen to the human voice soar in harmony, unaccompanied.
The first half of the program consists of prayer songs from Latin Mass. Ordinary parts of the Mass, chosen from different masterpieces of English Renaissance polyphony, are combined with monadic meditative music. Songs by English composers John Taverner, Walter Frye and Thomas Tallis will be included in this portion of the program.
The second half of the concert is dedicated to Estonian folk hymns and to the composer Cyrillus Kreek (1899–1962) thanks to whom the unique heritage of Estonian folk hymns has preserved.
Approximately 500 religious folk songs with different versions have been collected in Estonia. The records exist both in Estonian and Swedish languages. The older songs indicate monadic thinking, and in the more recent selections one feels the rising sense of harmony, which can be connected to the introduction of organs and harmoniums in the churches and chapels.
LRUNews
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