Bach Cantata Series • Jazz • Recorder • Special Events • Choirs • Saint Luke Organ
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SAINT LUKE RECORDER SERIES

2009-2010

 

The Saint Luke Recorder Series grows out of our commitment to enhancing the musical experiences we regularly provide for the Chicagoland public.

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The artist for this series is John Langfeld, a Chicago area musician who has specialized in exploring performance practices for Baroque and 20th Century recorder music as well as in performing the many seldom programmed compositions for unaccompanied alto recorder.  His interest in performing both traditional and more contemporary styles provides an unusual opportunity to discover the relatively untapped “musical universe” of which recorders are capable.  

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In this fourth year of the series, Langfeld is caught up in a "red shift" - pushing the boundaries of an expanding recorder universe to seek out new experiences that boldly go where no recorder series has gone before.

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In the November concert, "WANTED: Dead or Alive," Langfeld welcomes an ancient cousin to the recorder family of instruments and pays homage to European and Native American composers whose names have been lost to history but whose talent has made their music memorable and moveing throughout the years.

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In the April concert, "Recorders and ALL THAT JAZZ," the boundaries of the recorder universe expand to include jazz compositions written especially for recorders, a partnership between a recorder quartet and a Chicago-based Jazz Trio, and a Bach composition idiom that has been re-worked in a jazz idiom.
 

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This year's November offering owes its entire content to composers represented only as "Anonymous," those unknowns who will never get proper credit for their efforts. The program includes a Renaissance pairing of arrangements of the same tune for both vocal and recorder ensembles as well as a contemporary arrangement for recorder quartet of the anonymous Greensleeves, a tune I have been exploring in various arrangements throughout this series. An anonymous Medieval composer provides the source for a rousing combination of singers and recorder players in the 13th century Sumer is icumen in.

Acting as bookends for this concert are traditional Zuni melodies performed on the Native American Flute, a cousin of the European recorder and the product of conversations with Mark Church, a former student from Arizona who has shared with me some of the musical traditions of his heritage.

                         WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE: Music by Anonymous Composers
 

Zuni Sunrise Song

Sonate for Alto Recorder and Continuo

Con que la lavare

for Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass Voices

from (From the "Cancionero de Uppsala")

Con que la lavare

for Soprano, Bass, Tenor and Alto Recorders

(Diminution by Giovanni Pedaggio)

Greensleeves

Recorder Quartet

(arranged by Stan Davis)

Sonate

for Alto Recorder, Flute and Continuo

Estampe

for Recorder Quartet

Sumer is icumen in

for for Vocal Quartet and Recorder Quartet

Arrangement by John Langfeld

Zuni Sunset Song

 

Traditional Native American

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Traditional Native American

The concert is free to the public.  A reception follows.

 

I have always been interested in playing jazz music that didn't demand improvisational skill. (One must know one's limits.) A quick Google search yielded wonderful music by Pete Rose, a recorder/jazz composer from the East Coast. His compositions explore unusual combinations of recorders and provide authentic opportunities for jazz-starved (or daft) recorder players.

The entire program promises to be a jazzy affair with Andy Tecson on saxophone, Bobby Schiff on piano, Jerry Coleman on drums, Dawn Holt Lauber singing Harold Arlen as well as a Bach composition arranged for voice, drums, Cory Biggerstaff's string bass and, of course, recorders. There is also a World Premiere of a work written especially for this concert, Randall Snyder's Miniature Set for Tenor Recorder and String Bass (2009).

                                                   Recorders and ALL THAT JAZZ
 

Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home

for Soprano, Alto Recorder, Piano, Bass & Percussion

This and That

for One Recorder Player (1999)

Miniature Set for Tenor Recorder and String Bass (2009)

from World Premiere

Sleepers Wake

for Soprano, Recorder Quartet, String Bass & Drums (2009)

J.S. Bach, Arr. by John Langfeld

Handful of Keys

for Recorder Quartet

"Fats" Waller, Arr. by Stan Davis

'S Wonderful

for Recorder Quartet (2004)

Moondust

for Recorder Quartet, Soprano Saxophone and Percussion (2007)

 

Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen

 

Pete Rose

 

Randall Snyder

 

J.S. Bach, Arr. by John Langfeld

 

 

"Fats" Waller, Arr. by Stan Davis

 

George Gershwin, Arr. by Stan Davis

 

Pete Rose

 

 

The concert is free to the public.  A reception follows.

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