Baroque music festival at church slated for Jan. 8 to 13
Performers from S.A., London will be featured
Joseph Causby, organist and choirmaster for St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, prepares the children’s choir for practice in 2013. The Alamo Baroque Festival will emphasize musical education and outreach, but its free public performances will showcase the “best of the best,” Causby said in a release.
A six-day music festival at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church beginning Jan. 8 will feature students, teachers and performers from the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Children’s Chorus of San Antonio, Youth Orchestras of San Antonio, the San Antonio Symphony, Trinity University and the University of Texas at San Antonio.
The Alamo Baroque Festival will emphasize musical education and outreach, but its free public performances will showcase the “best of the best,” Joseph Causby, the church’s organist and choirmaster, said in a news release. “Music written hundreds of years ago can sound as fresh and alive today as when it was first heard.”
The finale concert at 3 p.m. Jan. 13 is an official Tricentennial celebration event. The festival, arriving near the start of the city’s celebration, will highlight the historical nature of the music, organizers said.
“Much of this early music was performed when San Antonio was founded in 1718,” said Richard Butler, a professor emeritus of economics at Trinity University and member of the congregation who underwrote the church’s effort to establish a permanent presence for classical music composed from the Middle Ages to about 1750.
The church is at 315 E. Pecan St. downtown, a block from the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. A schedule of events is at www.AlamoBaroqueFestival.org. In addition to public performances, the festival will offer master classes and private instruction by audition. Information is available at 210-226-2425.
Concerts by festival faculty are set for 10:30 a.m. Jan. 10 at Alamo Plaza and 7 p.m. Jan. 11 at St. Mark’s. Trinity University will host a panel discussion at 11 a.m. Jan. 11 with festival guest artists, moderated by Texas Public Radio’s Nathan Cone, on why baroque music is relevant, the role of classical music in a 21st-century world and the future of early music here.
“Our neighbors Austin, Dallas and Houston have started early music festivals, and the time is right for San Antonio,” Butler said.
The church is in its 25th year of promoting sacred music with free concerts involving its own choir, guest performers and partner organizations. The ensembles to be featured Jan. 8 to 13 are “part of a movement that has swept the world of classical music: historically informed performances of vocal instrument and chamber music … using period instruments,” the release states.