Performance and Purcell Workshop

In preparation for the Fraser Valley Kiwanis Music Festival, AMS singers and pianists will prepare for a performance workshop on Saturday, April 9th at 4pm. Also featured will be solos and duets by Henry Purcell.

Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695) was a British Baroque composer. He is considered to be one of the greatest English composers; no other native-born English composer approached his fame until Edward Elgar (1857 – 1934), who was appointed Master of the King's Music in 1924.

Purcell incorporated French and Italian stylistic elements in his music, which is evident in the dance-like rhythms in many of his compositions. At times his lively rhythmic accents are surprisingly offbeat to our contemporary musical sensibilities. In the studio, we have focused on songs and duets from two of Purcell's operas, The Fairie Queene and King Arthur. The Fairie Queene is a semi-opera in five acts that sets Shakespeare's great comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream to music. Love all mixed up by the forest imp Puck gives occasion for many shenanigans, reflected in the songs sung by various wood fairies. King Arthur, a dramatic opera with a libretto by John Dryden (1631 - 1700), is a patriotic setting of one of England's greatest myths.