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From 1,000 years ago to present, Skylark Ensemble taking Glencairn audience on trip through history In a program designed specifically for Glencairn Museum in Bryn Athyn, the Skylark Ensemble, featuring vocalists and musicians, will take the audience on a trip through the history of sacred music when it performs Sept. 21 in the Great Hall of the 10-story Romanesque-style mansion that houses the museum. Entitled, “Psalms, Songs and Settings of Unusual Religious Texts,”
the 4 p.m. program will reach back 1,000 years to look at the history
of religion through music and will feature sections of chants, oratorios,
20th Century folk music and sacred hymns. One of Skylark’s specialties is musical settings of passages from the Book of Psalms. The program will open with Gergorio Allegri’s setting of Psalm 51, for several hundred years the well-guarded property of the Sistine Chapel Choir. Skylark’s setting will be complete with the embellishments added over the centuries by the famous castrati, including repeated descending note patterns sung pianissimo by the soprano soloist, beginning on high C. Another specialty of Skylark is the juxtapositioning of chant and polyphony. For Glencairn’s program, Skylark will perform examples of various kinds of chant, from single line Gregorian chant to samples of harmonized chant, including a Psalm setting sung in Anglican Chant. Skylark employs the talents of Kristin Kopple, soprano; Ruth Ideen, soprano; Sarah Grace Lutton, mezzo soprano; K. Rebecca Oehlers, mezzo soprano; David Sharp, tenor; Jerome Brandt, baritone; Alison Simpson, harpist; Loretta Fossler, pianist; and Helen Kavanagh, pianist. Admission to the concert is $8; $4, for museum members and students; children under 5, free. Glencairn is located at 1001 Cathedral Road at Route 232 in Bryn Athyn. For directions or additional information about the event or the museum, call 215-938-2600 or visit Glencairn’s website at www.glencairnmuseum.org.
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