The Tallis Scholars

*NOTE: This is an OLDER article. Don't try to find a performance in Pittsburgh now!

http://www.pittnews.com/arts-entertainment/lords-and-ladies-love-the-tallis-scholars-1.825576

Apparently when certain concepts are reborn, they never die again. Such is the case with the music of the Tallis Scholars, performing in Pittsburgh tomorrow night.

Director Peter Phillips founded the Tallis Scholars group in 1973. Based in London, the 10-person group performs a cappella songs.

The Tallis Scholars has globally established itself rather prestigiously as a performing group of Renaissance sacred music. The New York Times calls the Tallis Scholars “the rock stars of Renaissance vocal music.” The group records and releases its work through its own label and travels through America at least twice a year on tour.



The Scholars’ performance at Calvary Episcopal Church this weekend will be the group’s first time in Pittsburgh since 1989. Last year’s Renaissance and Baroque audience voted the group a No. 1 to hear, opening the doors for the Tallis Scholars to be called back.

Dr. Elizabeth Etter, the executive director of the Renaissance & Baroque Society of Pittsburgh, wasexcited to be presenting the Tallis Scholars.

“My understanding is that people who know about them will travel easily 100 miles to hear them, as they are reputed to be the best in the world for what they do,” she said in an e-mail.

The group’s upcoming performance is part of the 40th Anniversary Season of Renaissance and Baroque of Pittsburgh. Titled “The Spanish High Renaissance,” it will consist of sacred vocal pieces from the 16th century. The pieces focus around the Easter holiday and Holy Week.

Etter had her own explanation for why these pieces have survived through the centuries to the present 21st.

“I think that the mathematical proportion, clarity and purity of sound and linear texture of the period, especially manifest in the sacred music that will be performed a cappella, continues to hold a kind of fascination and devotion that is both spiritual as well as musical.”