Apollo’s Fire launches new medieval-Celtic folk Christmas program

Cleveland Heights resident Jeannette Sorrell and her band of international musicians will present a bold new holiday program, blending the ensemble’s early-music and folk-music wings for the first time.

Apollo’s Fire, The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, just returned from its second international tour, which played to standing ovations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Boston, Bordeaux, Madrid and Lisbon. Despite the excitement of the tour (which included six sold-out concerts), Sorrell said she is joyful to be back in her Coventry home. She is also excited about her latest creation: a new holiday program titled Sacrum Mysterium: A Celtic Christmas. 

The idea for the program came to Sorrell after a visit to Montréal in 2009. There, she met her future co-conspirator Sylvain Bergeron, the artistic director of Ensemble La Nef. Captivated by his group’s beautiful renditions of Scottish/Gaelic music, Sorrell conceived of a collaboration. The groups’ common denominator had been Canadian soprano Meredith Hall, whose meltingly beautiful voice had graced the productions of both ensembles for several years. Sorrell hatched a plan that boldly treads the crossroads of Celtic artistic traditions.  

“The opening track of La Nef’s Celtic CD seemed to be calling to me, wanting to become a procession in a cathedral,” Sorrell said. “From there my imagination took over, and a program blending a Scottish medieval Vespers service with folk elements from pagan pre-Christian Britain came into my head immediately.”

The lack of surviving renaissance and baroque music from Ireland and Scotland, however, presented some challenges. Sorrell cites the Reformation’s 17th-century ban on what we would call artistic church music for the dearth of surviving sacred works composed by preceding generations. Intent on presenting both sacred and secular music in the Celtic Christmas concerts, she searched further back in time, and settled on excerpts from the 13th-century “Vespers of St. Kentigern”—one of the few remaining sacred Scottish works prior to the 18th century. 

St. Kentigern was the patron saint of Glasgow, and this Vespers service would have been sung at Glasgow Cathedral. The work existed only in manuscript—in medieval Gregorian chant notation—until just a few months ago, when an edition in modern notation was published in Scotland. Sorrell snapped it up so that the Apollo’s Fire performances will be the first time this music is heard in North America.

The excerpts from the Vespers service will be interwoven with Gaelic prayers, pagan carols, and familiar Christian carols such as “Lully, Lullay,” “O Come Emmanuel,” and “Noel Nouvelet,” as well as traditional Irish and Scottish fiddle tunes and dances.

In addition to Meredith Hall’s appearance, legendary British baroque guitarist and step-dancer Steve Player and world-class hammered dulcimer diva Tina Bergmann will share the stage for the first time. Player has wowed local subscribers with his fancy footwork and digital pyrotechnics in the Apollo’s Fire “Mediterranean Nights” programs. Bergmann has mesmerized concertgoers during the summer “Countryside Concerts,” including “Come to the River.” The program includes AF string players, Celtic harp, bagpipes, wooden flutes, percussion, and co-director Bergeron on lute and baroque guitar—as well as the16-member Apollo’s Singers, hailed as “one of the finest choirs of its kind in the country”  by the Plain Dealer.

“It may be a bit controversial that we are blending folk music with serious music,” Sorrell said. “But in medieval and renaissance times, and even in the baroque, there was not much gap between folk music and art music. That barrier between the two is a relatively modern thing. I want to break down that barrier. Music speaks to everyone.”

Tickets start at $25 and are available through the Apollo’s Fire box office at 216-320-0012  or online at www.apollosfire.org. Student, senior, young adult and group discounts are available.

Preconcert talks are held one hour before each performance. The talks will be led by Silvain Bergeron, lutenist and artistic director of Ensemble La Nef, and are sponsored by the Friends of Apollo’s Fire.

Heights area concerts are Saturdays, Dec. 10 and Dec. 17, at 8:00 p.m., at First Baptist Church, 3630 Fairmount Boulevard.