$40 | $32 UC Faculty & Staff | $20 under 35 | $10 Students
UChicago Students: request a free ticket (limit 25)
Musicians of the Tenshō Embassy
6:30 PM pre-concert lecture by Makoto Harris Takao.
This Early Music program celebrates the musical accomplishments of Japanese students at Jesuit missionary schools in Japan (1549–1613) who became accomplished viol players and singers. European Jesuits ran the schools where music was considered essential learning. Although surviving accounts by the Jesuits about the mission in Japan are laden with racism and eurocentrism, the students were highly gifted musicians. Lyracle honors these boys’ achievements through music and storytelling with works by Durante Lobo, Francisco Guerrero, Damião de Góis, and Jacopo Peetrino. Actor Danielle Boivin joins the five musicians for the readings from historical documents.
The pre-concert lecture is co-sponsored by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies with support from a Title VI National Resource Center Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
Dive deeper into this incredible history by joining us for a lecture-demonstration by Lyracle in the Logan Center Penthouse on Saturday, April 13 from 10:30-11:30 AM. Details below:
Classical music concerts often center around a particular composer, canonical masterwork, or geographical compositional style. Consequently, today’s programs celebrate a relatively small group of composers, and we miss opportunities to approach music in ways that incorporate a broader range of music-making experiences by a diverse range of music-makers. Curating concert programs to focus on people who, unlike history's most celebrated composers, we know little about is inherently challenging. Using textual and musical examples from Musicians of the Tenshō Embassy, we will provide a behind the scenes peek at how, with a lot of research and a little imagination, Lyracle puts together concerts about figures who have remained in the shadows of history.