Zaterdag/Saturday 4 Augustus/August 2012 Brugge, Begijnhofkerk, 22h30 (sic) [ENG] Happy to announce that tomorrow Saturday 4 August 2012 Psallentes will have the full first night of the new production CLOISTERED at the MA-festival in Bruges, Belgium. Welcome! [NED] Psallentes is blij te kunnen meedelen dat morgen zaterdag 4 augustus 2012 de volle première zal plaatsvinden... Continue Reading →
In this series of posts, an attempt was made at portraying aspects of a chant performer’s creative explorations, against a backlight of developments in the world of artistic research. Focusing on the creative potential of recitation (of texts) and reconsideration (of histories, theories, contexts), an image has emerged, inevitably incomplete, of the chant performer as... Continue Reading →
Music for saints holds a special place in the repertoire of chant. In the first centuries of Christianity a cult of saints developed, and long before the invention of musical notation a considerable repertoire of music for saints had already been established. However, the bulk of that kind of music had yet to come, since... Continue Reading →
There is hardly any better training imaginable for a plainchant performer than a detailed experience of different forms of recitation. The art of recitation is at the heart of instruction and creative development. As described earlier, various rhetorical elements (as basic as the beginning and end of a sentence) and their translation into musical formulae,... Continue Reading →
De Vlaamse regering heeft vandaag beslist dat Chant Group Psallentes ook in de periode 2013-2016 structureel ondersteund wordt, met een bijna verdriedubbeling van de middelen. Wij zijn daar uiteraard heel erg blij mee! We zullen meer dan ooit ons best doen om ons publiek krachtige en intense ervaringen aan te bieden, altijd vertrekkende vanuit laatmiddeleeuwse... Continue Reading →
And so, from the recitation of Erasmus’ paraphrases on the Gospel according to John (using them as an evocation of an old tradition of commentary) to the use of more modern sources commenting on religious issues in general, or maybe even on life in general, that is a logical next step for a present-day performer.... Continue Reading →
The Christian practice of liturgical recitation of sacred texts (also known in other religions, and notably in the context of the Jewish synagogue, from which the Christian tradition most probably originated) has a long and interesting history, that has been described elsewhere. A text was chanted to simple formulae based on a reciting tone with... Continue Reading →
The song that we sing has neither beginning nor end. It is the story of Alpha and Omega, of the Word incarnate, of life and death, of life after death. Our beginning of this tale comes out of nothing and our song will die away into nothing. It is insignificant and small and, what is... Continue Reading →
Psallentes Oude Muziek 