The Boston Camerata Brings the Christmas Music of Medieval Europe to Boston

The Boston Camerata's Christmas concerts are by now a Boston-area and national tradition. This holiday season, the Camerata brings Puer Natus Est: A Medieval Christmas, to Boston on December 4. The program celebrates the role of the Nativity and Mary in Christmas musical traditions.

Christ's birth and the specific themes of Annunciation, Advent, and Nativity make Christmas a holiday unique among other midwinter rites. As the Dark Ages waned, the relatively more stable living conditions of the 12th and 13th centuries encouraged a tremendous outburst of religious art, poetry, and music. But whereas the great monuments of medieval architecture, sculpture, and design are well known today, the musical world of the Middle Ages is often seen as somewhat mysterious.

Boston Camerata's famous holiday concerts, however, make these distant sounds seem fresh and new. By using a combination of intuition, artistry, and historical research, the Boston Camerata, with its many years of experience performing these beautiful works, can do justice to the compelling musical material at hand. The program will feature a trio of women’s voices with Camerata director Anne Azéma, Camila Parias, Deborah Rentz-Moore; Christa Patton playing winds and harp; and Jacob Mariani on vielle.

"I grew up in Strasbourg, France, right on the border of Germany," says Boston Camerata Artistic Director Anne Azéma. "I heard both French and German spoken and sung from early childhood, and these Christmas melodies are part of who I am. What a joy to share them now, in my adopted home!"

December 4, 3pm, Gordon Chapel at Old South Church, 645 Boylston St., Boston, MA

Tickets: $25-$55. Please check website for more information.

For more information: bostoncamerata.org or 617-262-2092