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Boston Shawm & Sackbut Ensemble, Returns to Music, Gettysburg! With the Great Early Sacred Choral Works

The Boston Shawm & Sackbut Ensemble will bring the sounds of early renaissance music to the chapel of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in their next performance for Music Gettysburg! on Sunday April 25th at 7:30p.m.. The Renaissance band will also be accompanied the Schola Cantorum of Gettysburg in the public concert.

The ensemble of early woodwind and brass instruments will feature the works of Heinrich Schütz, some of the finest early choral works before Bach. Highlights for the concert include beautiful settings of the Lord Prayer, Psalm 23, The Heavens are Telling, Is God For Us, and much more.

The Choral sounds will by provided by the splendid choral sounds of the Schola Cantorum of Gettysburg. The Schola Cantorum is a 30-voice choir under the direction of its founder, Dr. Stephen P. Folkemer, featuring voices from Central Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, which regularly performs sacred choral music of the 15th through the 18th Centuries. In addition to concert performances, the Schola Cantorum regularly performs festival choral vespers in the Music, Gettysburg! series.

Returning to Music, Gettysburg! for its seventh performance, the Boston Shawm and Sackbut Ensemble has been a favorite of Boston audiences for many years. The Ensemble has given concerts all over the United States, as well as at the Tage Alte Musik in Regensburg, Germany, and its members have all worked closely with numerous leading early music ensembles, including the Gabrieli Players, Taverner Players, Piffaro, Boston Camerata, Waverly Consort, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Apollo’s Fire. The Ensemble has provided the trombone section for several period-instrument orches­tras,and can be heard on Boston Baroque's recordings of Mozart’s Solemn Vespers and Mass in C (harmonia mundi USA), Mozart’s Requiem, Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers, Lost Music of Early America, and Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride (all on Telarc). The Boston Shawm & Sackbut En­semble can be heard on several recordings with the Boston Camerata on the Erato label, and vari­ous combinations of its players have made significant contributions to recordings by the Taverner Players, Gabrieli Players, and Ensemble for Early Music.

Throughout the Western world, all during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, musicians were employed by cities, towns, courts and cathedrals to enliven public events, to play for processions and dancing, to increase devotion. Today, the Boston Shawm & Sackbut Ensemble brings that festive and important tradition to life again. "This group is perhaps the best known Renaissance band in the western hemisphere" said Mark Oldenburg, chair of Music, Gettysburg! The group includes Marilyn Boenau, a Gettysburg High School graduate. Now a professional musician, she lives in Watertown, MA. Other members of the group include Douglas Kirk, Mack Ramsey, Erik Schmalz, Diana Brewer, and Daniel Stillman.

Enjoy this rare and beautiful instrumental and choral musical treat Sunday evening, which is free and open to the public. The Seminary Chapel is on Seminary Ridge in Gettysburg. For more information about this and other concerts in the 2010 Music, Gettysburg! schedule, please call 717-334-6286 ext 2197 or visit the Music, Gettysburg! web site: www.musicgettysburg.org.

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