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Serenissima Una Noche: Toronto Consort’s Latin-flavoured Christmas concerts at Trinity St. Paul’s Centre December 7 and 8 Toronto, November 22, 2007 — The Toronto Consort celebrates Christmas with a Latin flavour on December 7 and 8 at 8:00 pm with Serenissima Una Noche at Trinity St. Paul's Centre. Artistic Director David Fallis turns to 16th and 17th century Spain and Latin America to create this program, which is by turns haunting, boisterous, and soulful. One of Canada’s premiere period music ensembles, The Toronto Consort is known for inventive programming that breathes life into the music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance and early Baroque. Single tickets are available through the box office at (416) 964-6337. For more information, visit www.torontoconsort.org Complex rhythms and sensuous melody are hallmarks of Christmas celebrations in the Spanish-speaking nations of the world on both sides of the Atlantic. Serenissima Una Noche includes pieces in native languages including the mestizo dialect, Quechua and Nahuatl. Vocal and instrumental selections take on a distinct Latin flavour with lutes, guitars, flutes, castanets, and drums. Special guests Lucas Harris (guitar and theorbo), Christopher Verrette (violin) and Julia Seeger Scott (Baroque harp) join the members of the Consort. The first half of the program is devoted to music from Renaissance Spain and begins with the haunting "Song of the Sibyl" (El Canto de la Sibilla) — a curious throwback to pagan ritual which survives to this day in several cathedrals and monasteries in Spain. The Consort performs this ancient plainsong with Renaissance four-part settings of the response, and rounds out the program’s first half with Christmas villancicos by Francisco Guerrero, feisty favourites Riu, riu, chiu and E la don, don, and Mateo Flecha the Elder’s ensalada La Bomba. The second half of the program moves to Latin America and features music from sources in Bogatá, Cuzco and Guatemala City, Mexico and Bolivia, including Serenissima Una Noche by Gerónimo González, which gives the concert its name. A highlight of the evening is Hanaçpachap cussicuinin, the first piece of vocal polyphony printed in any New World source. This hymn was transcribed by a Franciscan friar in 1631 and the text is written in the Quechua language (the imperial language of the Incas). Other music included on the program is heavily influenced by African and Caribbean dances like cumbé, zarambeque, guaracha, negrilla, jácaras,
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