Blue Heron celebrates Ockeghem at Rockefeller Chapel | Arts & Leisure

Blue Heron (certainly one of many prettiest names in classical music) is a Boston-based early music ensemble established in 1999 and this yr’s Don Michael Randel ensemble-in-residence on the College of Chicago. On Friday evening, Jan. 27, they gave a live performance at Rockefeller Chapel celebrating Johannes Ockeghem, who was born roughly 600 years in the past. 

Blue Heron’s tribute to Ockeghem is years within the making. In 2015, the ensemble started its Ockeghem@600 challenge, a multi-season effort to commemorate the Franco-Flemish composer’s 600th birthday by performing his full works. 

The principle work on this system at Rockefeller was Ockeghem’s Requiem. This unaccompanied music for voices appeared to soar and fly by way of the chapel as if it had been as seen as mist or fog. The magisterial setting was excellent for the detailed music and all its constituent elements.

Blue Heron had six males and two ladies singing and plenty of issues had been exceptional. First, it was stunning how properly balanced the group sounded with solely two ladies. (Clearly among the males had been countertenors.) The sound was strong and full. Second, even such a small drive as this was in a position at occasions to utterly fill the huge area with ringing music.

Earlier than the intermission there have been a number of brief items and these allowed smaller groupings to carry out, together with two duets pairing a person and a girl. For these, Scott Metcalfe, the inventive director of Blue Heron, joined in. For Antoine Busnoys “Ma demoiselle, ma maistresse” he supplied fiddle accompaniment, and for Ockeghem’s “Il ne m’en chault plus de nu lame” he introduced out a harp. These had been delicate sounding devices and didn’t carry as successfully because the voices, however nonetheless added a beautiful filigree to the music.

It was a pleasure to listen to them, even when at occasions I discovered the diction somewhat mumbly, and it made a chilly winter night that a lot hotter.