The Unrecorded Odyssey

The Unrecorded Odyssey: Voices from the Archives

Sunday, February 11, 2024, 4:00 p.m.
St. Matthew's Lutheran Church - 3281 16th St. San Francisco



View: Concert Program and Texts and Translations


Tactus SF is delighted to present "The Unrecorded Odyssey: Voices from the Archives," a special concert showcasing rare and predominantly unrecorded Renaissance music. This one-time event offers a unique opportunity to hear rarely-performed compositions, many of which have only recently been published and introduced to a broader audience. These pieces provide a rare glimpse into the rich and varied archives of Renaissance music—including music by women composers and composers working in New Spain.

Tactus SF, a twenty-voice choir specializing in Renaissance a cappella music, will be joined by guest artists: the Renaissance wind ensemble Mane Musica, organist Eugene Petrushansky, and Baroque violinist Caroline Armitage.

The concert—about an hour and a half long—will feature Tactus SF in a spectacular set of six madrigals by Orazio Vecchi on a poem of Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) dramatizing the odyssey of a soul afloat in a fragile boat among dangerous rocks, as well as two settings of the Magnificat by the Spanish-born Hernando Franco, master of music at the cathedral of Guatemala City, a motet by Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, active at the cathedral of Puebla in Mexico, and a setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah by Spanish composer Cristóbal de Morales.

Instrumental compositions will include pieces by Italian composers Isabella Leonarda, Maddalena Casulana, Tiburtio Massaino, and Girolamo Frescobaldi, as well as the Netherlandish composer Heinrich Isaac.

We hope you will join us to hear music you can't hear anywhere else.