Medieval traveling minstrels often journeyed hundreds of miles by foot to conferences to learn new songs.
Liza Malamut, artistic director of The Newberry Consort, has joined forces with Allison Monroe, artistic director of Trobar, a Cleveland-based medieval ensemble, to tell this fascinating story.
“I Sing a New Song: The Epic Journey of a Traveling Musician in the Middle Ages” will be presented March 3 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Evanston. The concert will also be performed March 1 at Bond Chapel at the University of Chicago and March 1 at Ganz Hall at Roosevelt University.
“It’s just a really interesting topic that neither Allison (Monroe), the director of Trobar, nor I had seen in a concert anywhere in the U.S.,” Malamut said. “We thought it would be pretty cool to explore the topic.”
“We don’t know a huge amount about the actual musicians that were playing this music,” Monroe added. “We know more about the composers — sometimes.”
She observed that what we do know about the minstrels “is so interesting and tantalizing.”
Seven musicians will perform at this concert which tracks the journey of some minstrels.
“We imagined a story in which minstrels traveled from Paris to a minstrel school in Brussels,” Malamut said. “They would have done this on foot or maybe on horseback. It was a perilous journey. There were a lot of obstacles that they may have encountered on the road. When they got to the minstrel school, it was a really exciting convention in which people would learn new songs to take back to their home cities.”
They would also learn about the latest technology and new instruments, Malamut noted. In addition, they would play in competitions.
The audience will learn the story of these schools, which were actually conventions, and hear some of the music the minstrels might have played from the 13th century through the middle of the 15th century.
“It was a fun idea to try to imagine what repertoire they might have been playing,” Monroe said. “Turns out it was a really hard task. It took a lot of digging and treasure hunting and out-of-the-box thinking.”
The women discovered that the minstrels usually played several instruments. They also learned that the minstrel schools were generally conducted during Lent. “The reason is that the musicians could not play during Lent because instruments were too loud and too non-penitent,” Monroe explained.
“So the musicians didn’t have anything to do. About halfway through Lent, there is Laetare Sunday, a little bit of reprieve from the somber, penitent atmosphere of Lent. So we think the minstrel schools happened around Laetare Sunday when it would have been permissible for instruments to be making noise.”
Monroe reported that the concert begins with party music for Mardi Gras, followed by chants for Lent, and music that might have been heard on Laetare Sunday. After that, the musicians travel home to arrive in time for Easter.
Art projections curated by musicologist and graphic designer Shawn Keener will include some narrative text to help tell the story.
“The instruments are going to be really interesting to people,” Malamut said. “We have a combination of traditional soft instruments of that time.” Those include recorders, vielle, and organetto, we well as voices. There will also be a three-person loud band, which will include two shawms and a medieval slide trumpet which was the precursor to the trombone.
Monroe said, “Because we were talking and working through it together, we probably ended up with something that’s really quite different than if either one of us had done it alone.”
‘I Sing a New Song: The Epic Journey of a Traveling Musician in the Middle Ages’
When: 4 p.m. March 3; virtual streaming March 20-April 18
Where: St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 939 Hinman Ave., Evanston
Tickets: $45-$65; $10 for students; $25 per household for streaming
Information: 312-285-0885; newberryconsort.org
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
