Christopher LeCluyse
The world of classical music is small, and when you narrow it down to early music, that world becomes minuscule. And that’s conducive to some serious artistic collaborations.
One such creative pairing will open Westminster College’s 2011-12 concert season. Salt Lake City’s Utopia Early Music joins forces with Texas-based Istanpitta Monday and Utopia’s founders Christopher LeCluyse and Emily Nelson are looking forward to the concert.
LeCluyse lived in Austin, Texas, for 11 years before moving to Salt lake City and he knows Istanpitta and has performed with them. “Last summer I did a program with them at the Texas Early Music Festival,” he said. “They’re a nationally known group and it’s great we can bring them to Salt Lake.”
For the program Monday, the two ensembles will recount in song and poetry the well known medieval love story of Tristan and Isolde. The core of the program is Chevrefoil by the mid-12th century poet Marie de France, Nelson said. “She was writing about a hundred years after the Norman Conquest. Not much is known about her. She was born in or around Paris, which at that time was the only area that was referred to as ‘France.’ And at some point in her life she ended up in England.”
Chevrefoil is Marie’s take on the story, which was already well known by the time she wrote it. “It’s her version just like Wagner’s is his own, too,” LeCluyse said.
There isn’t anything new or groundbreaking in Marie’s telling, LeCluyse and Nelson said.
Emily Nelson
“A tragic love triangle, which the Tristan and Isolde story is, was a common theme at that time,” he said. “All medieval songs deal with longing, unrequited love and exile.”
The story will be told in words and music. “I’ll be performing the parts of Isolde and Marie, and Chris will be Tristan,” Nelson said. “It’s going to have the character of a medieval opera.”
CONCERT INFO:
Location: Vieve Gore Concert Hall, Westminster College
Time and Date: 7:30 p.m., Sept. 12
Tickets: $15 general, free for students with ID
Phone: 801-832-2457