October 2023

As part of a community outreach initiative, a team of Sackville university and community partners have created a travelling installation that is currently moving through our community. We are bringing music created by our community into our community!

Three local music groups have recorded a motet by sixteenth-century renegade nun Raphaella Aleotti:

1) Soloists: Christina Haldane, Erin Bardua, Vicki St. Pierre, Andrew Wilson, and Greg Burton

2) Ventus Machina (woodwind quintet): Karin Aurell, Christie Goodwin, James Kalyn, Jon Fisher, and Patrick Bolduc

3) The Mount Allison Choral Society (directed by Kiera Galway)

Please join us for our first stop at the Fog Forest Gallery (14 Bridge Street) this Thursday and Friday (October 12 and 13) during opening hours.

Tour dates and locations below.

More information on the installation can be found below and on our website.

Aleotti: Now and Then

What might the music of a renegade nun of the Renaissance have to say to us as the pandemic wanes?

During the height of the pandemic, the virtual format of musical performances became commonplace; they were a lifeline to many of us as we navigated such difficult and uncharted territory. Now, as the pandemic wanes—or as we become accustomed to living with Covid 19’s presence—audiences and communities are cautiously returning to in-person musical events. What we have learned, however, is that the end to the pandemic does not appear to be the same as a return to pre-pandemic times, at least as far as musical performances are concerned. Post-pandemic music has opened new doors as it has realized the opportunity to involve both virtual and in-person elements and to reconfigure music for the community in a new way. Aleotti: Now and Then merges the virtual and in-person experiences in ways that reintroduce our community to music sounded within our most cherished spaces. It offers hope for the future by drawing inspiration from the past.

The text of the music is taken from the biblical Song of Songs, a marvellous little book in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Ostensibly an erotic celebration of the love of a man and a woman, the Song has been understood for centuries in the history of biblical reception as an allegory of the love between God and Israel (for Judaism) or Christ and the Church/the soul (for Christianity). But the antiphon does not merely quote the Song of Songs; instead it manipulates the text a little, combining disparate parts and even embellishing it to create a celebration of the figure of Mary. In this recasting of the biblical text, the senses, nature, bodies and genders collide to create a riotous sensation. Mary is truly a figure in this rendering who merges with the world around her, with the before and after. Aleotti’s rendering takes us outside traditional religion and asks us to think about what we need of our past to collect ourselves for the future.

Text and Translation

Vidi speciosam sicut columbam ascendentem desuper rivos aquarum: Cuius inaestimabilis odor erat nimis in vestimentis eius. Et sicut dies verni, flores rosarum circumdabant eam, et lilia convallium. Quae est ista, quae ascendit per desertum sicut virgula fumi, ex aromatibus myrrhae et thuris? Et sicut dies verni, flores rosarum circumdabant eam, et lilia convallium.

I saw the fair one rising like a dove above the streams of water: whose priceless fragrance clung to her garments. And as on a spring day, she was surrounded by roses and lily-of-the-valley. Who is this who rises from the desert like a pillar of smoke from incense of myrrh and frankincense? And as on a spring day, she was surrounded by roses and lily-of-the-valley.

So why bring Aleotti and her Song of Songs into our small, rural New Brunswick, pandemic-waning context? What light might they cast on our paths ahead? As a way forward, this non-conventional, multi-natured biblical text in the hands of an unconventional composer and a host of musical voices from throughout the community seems just about right. In the hands of professional soloists, accomplished community singers, and an expert wind ensemble, these takes and retakes are a joyful celebration of the world around us. They invite newness and variety, bring energy, encourage engagement with the senses, prompt deep contemplation and gesture at hopeful recovery. We hope you will take the time to listen intently, hear and feel voices joined in song, and maybe even pause to reflect on how the pandemic has shaped us, where we are now and who we could be.

–– Fiona Black, Linda Pearse, and Andrew Wilson

To make a Donation to the Festival click here

Thank you to our funders for their continued support: Heritage Canada, the Province of New Brunswick, the Province of Quebec, the Town of Sackville, The J.A.E. Crake Foundation, Canada Council of the Arts, Mount Allison University, and the generous donors in the community.