Oct. 27, 1997

Story by Charla Jenkins, (785) 864-3381

KU CHORAL GROUPS TO PAY TRIBUTE TO JOHANNES OCKEGHEM

LAWRENCE -- A tribute to the 15th-century musician Johannes Ockeghem will be performed by the University of Kansas Collegium Musicum and Oread Consort in upcoming concerts in Lawrence and Kansas City, Kan.

Directed by Simon Carrington, KU director of choral activities, and Rob Reid, Lawrence doctoral student, the two choral groups will perform "A Lament on the Death of Johannes Ockeghem," who died in 1497, at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 2, in the St. John the Evangelist Church, 1229 Vermont St., and Monday, Nov. 17, in the Old Mission United Methodist Church at Shawnee Mission Parkway and Mission Road in Kansas City, Kan.

For the two performances, the program will include the 24-voice Collegium Musicum singing Ockeghem's six-part "Missa Cuisvis Toni" ("Mass in any mode") in the Phrygian setting. The other four pieces on the program, sung by the Oread Consort, are by composers who are referred to in Josquin Desprez's "Déploration sur le trépas de J Ockeghem" ("Lament on the death of J Ockeghem") including "O bone Jesu" by Loyset Comphre, "Te decet laus" by Pierre de La Rue, "Lauda Sion" by Antoine Brumel and "Nymphes des Bois (Déploration sur le trépas de J Ockeghem)" by Desprez.

While Ockeghem's birthplace and date are unknown, Carrington said, the first documentation of his work mentions him as a singer at the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp from 1443 to 1444. He was a singer in the chapel of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon in Moulins, France, from 1446 to 1448. From the early 1450's until his death in 1497, he was employed by the French Court, serving as singer, organist, composer and even as treasurer of St. Martin-de-Tours for King Charles VII, beginning in 1459.

"As a composer, Ockeghem displays a highly resourceful and shrewd intellect," Carrington said. "He was particularly skilled at writing complex canons. The Mass being performed by the Collegium Musicum is a catholicon, which can be performed in each of the four primary church modes of Ockeghem's time, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, simply by changing 15th-century clefs, or 20th-century key signatures."

Carrington added that the "Missa Cuiusvis Toni," one of 14 masses composed by Ockeghem, is in a contrapuntal style, where each voice part has its own melody that works together with the other voice parts.

These choral concerts are free and open to the public.

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