DISCOVER MONTRÉAL’S HIDDEN MEDIEVAL TREASURES!
Musical notation was first elaborated in Europe during the early Middle Ages. It continued to develop throughout the period to reflect the increasingly sophisticated musical tastes and skills of medieval musicians, composers, and scribes. Their legacy to the modern world is both a universal method of notating music and an immense collection of manuscripts that provide a record of the repertoires of that period. These are the primary sources for the musicians of today who perform medieval music.
Each manuscript also has a story to tell beyond the music it contains. A medieval manuscript rarely remained in its place of origin. Most were lost, transformed, sent far away as gifts or acquired by wealthy parties, only to re-emerge centuries later, often in fragmentary form. In this way, a number of medieval manuscripts and fragments containing musical notation have ended up at McGill University’s Rare Books and Special Collections.
Like McGill, Ensemble Scholastica is based in Montréal. It is also Canada’s only female vocal ensemble that specializes in the performance of medieval plainchant and polyphony. With this concert, Ensemble Scholastica will be the first professional ensemble to create an entire program featuring selections from these largely unknown medieval sources in McGill’s possession.
In addition to the November 10th concert featuring our eight singers, there will be an evening of free activities introducing the public to McGill’s special collections of medieval manuscripts. This event will be held on November 7 at McGill’s Rare Books and Special Collections Library. The manuscripts will remain on display for several months.
