Membra Jesu nostri : a sung devotion

ANIMA presents a concert in celebration of Pride

Friday, June 7th June 2024 | 7:30 pm | Guelph Civic Museum (52 Norfolk Street, Guelph)

Tickets available at the door (Pay-What-You-Can)

Membra Jesu nostri: a sung devotion

Music by Dietrich Buxtehude

Poetry by Luke Hathaway & Arnulf of Leuven

featuring:

Lilly Gutierrez, soprano

Lesley Bouza, soprano

Daniel Cabena, countertenor

Chris Fischer, tenor

Paul Genyk-Berezowsky, baritone

Jonathan Oldengarm, harpsichord & organ

Joëlle Morton, violone

&

The Cardinal Consort of Viols

Sheila Smyth, treble viol & violin

Linda Deshman, tenor viol

Sara Blake, bass viol

Valerie Sylvester, bass viol & violin

*

Our Membra Jesu nostri is a queer and trans-y reenactment of the devotional rhythms of this beautiful Medieval hymn, as set to music by Dietrich Buxtehude in 1680.

A work of spiritual reclamation and erotic celebration, this work also celebrates the quotidian rhythms of caregiving, and acknowledges the agony of grief.

This sung devotion is a coming together of music and texts and of friends old & new. It’s a work of breath and movement and of heartfelt listening.

The gentle conversation of this première performance has been made possible by the Canada Council for the Arts and the kind offices of composer James Rolfe (https://www.jamesrolfe.ca), who edited our musical scores.

A chapbook with new words by Luke Hathaway and an afterword by Daniel Cabena is printed and published by Karen Schindler, Baseline Press (https://www.baselinepress.ca).

For more information: [email protected]

ANIMA (https://www.animaearlymusic.com) a metamorphosing ensemble, is the gathering-place in art of scholar-singer Daniel Cabena and trans poet/librettist Luke Hathaway. It is a place of queer friendship and sustaining story, a place where old texts and melodies are animated by spirit and voice. Our work is inspired by Dan’s genderqueer voice and performance history; by early-music sources which suggest new and fabulous possibilities for love and community; and by Luke’s trans-mystical poetry, in which masculine, feminine, and non-binary voices often speak as multiple aspects of a single person. Working together, we create and commission new works of text and music that are in conversation with early sources and soundworlds. We put these works up on their feet in novel performance contexts (workshops, teach-ins, touring programs …). We collaborate with other artists whose worlds of sound and spirit enrich our own.