Organization Member
Contact Information
(610) 572-2441, (610) 572-2441
avery.gosfield@gmail.comhttps://www.lucidarium.com
Bovisio, Monza e Brianza
Type of Organization
Performing EnsembleAbout
During a period in which history and art are constantly being reassessed in terms of colonialism, racism, inequality, and abuse, those of us who work in early music have more questions to ask than most. The answer (although this is not a unanimous opinion) is not to stop looking at Picasso’s paintings or listening to the St. John’s Passion. History, and art, when put into context, can be one of the most effective tools towards understanding.
In fact, in Lucidarium, we are convinced that Early Music can be used as an impetus for social change, and that the cultural heritage of the past should and must be used to learn about the present. Part of its mission is to prove that the artistic expression of the Middle Ages and Renaissance was not limited to European Christian males. Although most of their melodies might have been transmitted orally (rather than written down), the people who lived in the shadows of the great institutions also made great music. And, even if it takes a little more detective work and a lot more research, we believe that their voices deserve to be heard, now more than ever.
For almost two decades, Lucidarium has been known for its programs that, working between poetry, historical sources, and the oral tradition, try to recreate the soundscapes of Jewish communities from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (including Sounds from Shylock’s Venice, Ayn neue Lid, Iter Hierosolymitanum, and Ritual Echoes.) Other projects, using a similar blueprint, explore subjects ranging from the life of the common people at the time of the great Burgundian courts (L’Homme Désarmé,) an upcoming project dedicated to Queer culture (A Florence la Joyeuse Cité,) to music and science at the time of Leonardo da Vinci (Macchine.) The group has several multidisciplinary (with dancers and visual artists) and multicultural (with musicians from the contemporary World Music scene) projects, and has made numerous videos, most recently for the Utrecht Early Music Festival, the ShUM cities Artist in Residence Program and the Jüdische Woche Dresden.
Their latest program – Moriscos y Marranos – Songs from Exile, featuring singer and oud player Hussain Atfah, qanun virtuoso Turan Vurgun and ney virtuoso Tayfun Guttstadt, traces the Muslim – Jewish populations, and their music and poetry, in Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew as they fought to survive in Spain and in exile.
Lucidarium prides itself on exploring forgotten repertoires, making every concert a new experience, full of music the audience has never heard before. With a combination of painstaking research, and a joyful, spontaneous performance style, Lucidarium knows how to keep a 21st century public entertained — while sending them home with something to think about
