Last modified: Friday, March 26, 2010
Ensemble Lipzodes to perform CD-release concert at Lilly Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 26, 2010
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Ensemble Lipzodes, an early music ensemble composed of students and alumni of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and its Early Music Institute (EMI), will present a CD release concert and lecture April 6 at 7 p.m. at the Lilly Library on the IU Bloomington campus.
The CD, Oy Hasemos Fiesta: Music from 16th-century Guatemala for voices & winds, produced by the Jacobs Department of Recording Arts and recently published by Focus Records/IUMusic, is available from IU MarketPlace in the Jacobs School of Music. The project is based on a manuscript residing at the Lilly Library. The CD was recorded by Department of Recording Arts faculty members Wayne Jackson and Konrad Strauss along with Recording Arts student Alex Loew.
"Producing this CD was an intense process, requiring the coordination of many forces: the core five members of the ensemble plus guest artists on sackbut and recorders, and the entire Pro Arte Singers, not to mention the sincerely appreciated support of Lilly and the EMI," said Wolodymyr Smishkewych, the ensemble's vocalist, percussionist and webmaster. "The release of this CD marks a culmination of several years of hard work, perseverance and a fortunate crossing of resources, people and history."
"Working on such a large project with the Recording Arts Department, the Early Music Institute, the Lilly Library, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the Choral Department at Indiana University took quite a bit of coordination," said dulcian Anna Marsh. "We also had a guest artist on organ, in addition to sackbut, recorders and choir. We were very excited to do a piece that was in Nahuatl, and we hope to do some recently rediscovered Nahuatl/Mayan Theater that will incorporate some more of this music next year. There are so many more volumes of this music and other Latin American music in the Lilly library and so many more possibilities!"
Other core members of Ensemble Lipzodes include Juan Carlos Arango, C. Keith Collins and Kathryn Montoya. The group's multi-instrumentalists share duties with reeds -- shawms, dulcians and bassoons -- and recorders, as well as other instruments, depending upon the project.
Ensemble Lipzodes is a unique group of performers that came together in 2004 in Bloomington, Ind.
Its members were students completing degrees in the IU Jacobs School of Music and its Early Music Institute. The ensemble combines voice, shawms, dulcians, recorders and percussion to bring to life the rarely performed music of 16th-century Guatemala. In addition to this singular repertoire, the ensemble also explores new directions in early music utilizing voices and winds.
In 2004, Lipzodes was a finalist in Early Music America's Renaissance and Medieval Performance Competition. In 2006, the ensemble was selected as a winner in the Jacobs School's Ninth Competition in Performance of Music from Spain and Latin America. The ensemble has performed throughout the United States and in Latin America, and been featured at festivals and series such as the Bloomington Early Music Festival, the Chicago Latino Music Festival, the Boston Early Music Fringe Festival and the National Gallery of Art Concert Series.
In 2007, the group was featured on a CD recording by the University of North Texas, Christmas Vespers in Cusco: Music from an Incan Baroque City, with the University of North Texas Collegium Singers and Instrumentalists.
The ensemble's unique name comes from a creative misinterpretation of the writing on the flyleaf of MS 1, Santa Eulalia, from the Guatemalan Music Manuscripts. What at first glance seems to say "Lipzodes," actually is the first part of a passage which continues further: "LibRodeSancta olaya Puyumatlan. Este libro de canto hize yo franc de Leon maestro deste pueblo de sancta olaya. hizelo En el año De mill y quinientos y ochenta y dos annos. Franc De Leon." In an orthographic transformation typical of the region, the letters "b" and "p" became exchanged, and the "R" lost its vertical bar, to become what appeared to be a "Z."
