The Waimea Consort, an a cappella vocal ensemble of 12 singers, has been formed in January 1999 to bring rarely heard vocal music to the Big Island. Concerts in Waimea, Hilo and Honolulu allowed many to discover medieval, baroque, and 20th century a cappella music. Each of its last concerts in Waimea in October and December 2001 attracted more than 120 people for very well received performances. 
 

The first highlight in the performance is the rendition of the Latin Mass by two composers who worked in the Basilica San Marco in Venice one  century apart, Andrea Gabrieli around1600 and Antonio Lotti around 1700. Two other sacred works are on the program, composed by Waclaw Szamotul, a very talented polish composer who died around 1560, and Thomas de Victoria, a contemporary of Gabrieli. Victoria, one of the most famous composers of his time, only wrote music in Latin but produced very moving and passionate sacred works, as the one the Consort will sing, Caligaverunt oculi mei (My eyes dimmed with my tears).

The Consort will sing a French Chanson written by Guillaume Dufay, a composer at the border between the Medieval and Renaissance periods, whose harmonies still sound strange to today's ears. It will bring the audience to the second highlight of the program from five centuries later: a series of three songs by Claude Debussy, composed on poems by Duke Charles of Orleans, prince and poet from the 15th Century. These Trois Chansons, Debussy's only a cappella works, are a striking example of the creation of an atmosphere through music. The concert will close with an amazing piece by Vytautas Miskinis, a contemporary composer of sacred choir music born in Lithuania in 1954: a rendition of Tantum Ergo which is likely to be heard for the first time in the Islands.

If you love vocal music, come to the 2003 Fall Concert of the Waimea Consort. You should not regret it, and it is even worth an up-hill drive to Waimea from either side of the Island...