One of the greatest personal rewards during the years while I lived and worked in Europe was creating musical recordings with various early music ensembles. While rehearsing for concerts, my colleagues would often discuss where they were headed after the final performance, and often we heard, facciamo un disco (we’re doing a recording). Recordings usually took five days, and involved a lot of perseverance and patience. Some of the most memorable recordings were the six we did with Consortium Carissimi. We would set up our studio in a church, usually located in the countryside of the Polesine region of the Veneto, and with our sound technician we would find the best location in the space to record. This process usually took up the majority of our first day. After that the race began to record all of the music in the limited amount of time allotted to us. What an invigorating process!
I have often found myself longing to recreate that experience here in Minnesota. That is why, while rehearsing for our final performance of the year, when someone asked what is happening next I was very excited to say, facciamo un disco!
This summer, Consortium Carissimi will begin recording a series of CDs to be released on the Naxos label. They will be the American ensemble’s debut recordings. Naxos publishes monographic CD’s, which means that all of the music included on the CD is from one composer. We are thrilled to be recording the music of Giacomo Carissimi’s friend and colleague, Bonifazio Graziani. The first CD will be music in Latin which includes two Oratories and five Motets. The second CD will be in Italian, his Opus 25, which is an anthology of small cantatas for one to four voices.
Consortium Carissimi is pleased to continue bringing the music of the Baroque era to post-modern ears. We do this by performing three concerts each year, conducting master classes in schools, and of course, with this new and exciting CD recording. We are also hoping to add 3 additional CDs to our collection within the next few years. These will include the larger scale motets of Giacomo Carissimi. Those three CDs will be world premiere recordings, which will help promote the world of lesser-known early Italian Baroque music.
Facciamo un disco!
Garrick Comeaux, Artistic Director