Mass for Four Voices – Williamass-for-four-voices-revisedm Byrd

30 October 2016

12n Extraordinary Form Mass

Collegium Musicum

Prince of Peace welcomes Collegium Musicum, a chamber ensemble specializing in music of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods from the University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music. In addition to their performance of the Byrd Mass, the choir will also sing the masterful motet by Tomás Luis de Victoria, O Quam Gloriosum, conducted by Philip Reed. This choir’s exceptional personnel and historically informed performance practice will offer a rare treat for our parish’s musical and liturgical life!

Collegium Musicum’s appearance at Prince of Peace will be one of only two in the Upstate this fall. Don’t miss this exceptional choir singing the repertoire they do best in the setting for which it was conceived.

Our Schola Cantorum will sing the Gregorian Propers of the Mass.

J.D. Burnett, Director of Collegium Musicum, enjoys a varied career as a conductor, singer and teacher.  He is Assistant Professor of Music and Associate Director of Choral Activities at the University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music, where he conducts the Men’s and Women’s Glee Clubs and the Collegium Musicum, and teaches courses in choral literature and conducting. Additionally, he is Artistic Director and Conductor of the Kinnara Ensemble, a professional chamber choir based in Princeton, New Jersey.

Composed during the Protestant reign of Elizabeth I between 1592-1595, William Byrd’s cycle of three masses (for 4, 3, and 5 voices, respectively) was a work of considerable political and legal risk. These highly sensitive documents were published as small, concealable folios and distributed for use behind closed doors in the recusant Catholic households of Elizabethan England.

The Mass for Four Voices, composed first of the set, blends English musical tradition with contemporary Continental style.