Montclair-based Cisraritanian Consort of Viols to perform in Basking Ridge, Sunday, Feb. 19

The Cisraritanian Consort of Viols

New Jersey’s historical string ensemble
2016–2017 Season

Roland Hutchinson, treble and bass viol
Sheryl Reed, tenor and bass viol
Ilizabeth Cabrera and Douglas Hardin, bass viols

Verrie Sweet and Artificiall:
Music of the Little Ice Age (1600–1850)
for four violas da gamba

MONTCLAIR, NJ. The Montclair-based Cisraritanian Consort of Viols, New Jersey’s historical string ensemble, will perform “Verrie Sweet and Artificiall: Music of the Little Ice Age (1650–1850) for four violas da gamba” at The Farmstead Arts Center on the grounds of the historic Kennedy Martin Stelle Farmstead, 450 King George Rd., Basking Ridge NJ, Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 2:00 pm. (Snow date is Sunday, February 26.)

The performance will take place in the intimate acoustics of the 200 year old farmhouse on the site and will be followed by a reception with a chance to meet the artists and become further acquainted with their instruments. Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door, and $10 for students, seniors, and members of the Friends of the Kennedy Martin Stelle Farmstead. For more information, and to purchase tickets: https://farmsteadartscenter.org/performances/or 908 636-7576.

On the program are fantasies and dance suites by Giovanni Coprario, Matthew Locke, and Henry Purcell; psalm tunes and anthems, some imported and some homegrown, from eighteenth and nineteenth century America; a recent composition for viol consort by the Australian composer Brooke Green; and a virtuoso quartet for four bass violas da gamba from the curiously titled “Stricturae Viola–di gambicae” collection by the German-Czech baroque composer David Funck.

While one does not often think of the viols (also known as violas da gamba) in connection with colonial and Federalist America, the instruments were not entirely unknown. No less a patriot than Benjamin Franklin owned a bass viola da gamba—although he had to send to England to obtain strings and music for it at a time when fiddle and cittern strings were readily available in American shops. The British army seemingly thought enough of Franklin’s viol to carry it off when they looted his home during the Revolutionary War.

“We are delighted by the invitation to play at this historical New Jersey venue,” says ensemble founder and early-music specialist Roland Hutchinson. “In recognition of its significance, we’ve programmed some popular psalmody, wonderful music of historical importance in this location, where some of these very tunes may very well have been sung at social gatherings. We poached them from early American collections of vocal music—including those of Dr. Lowell Mason, the Victorian-era church musician and pioneer of music education who made his home in Orange, New Jersey. Renaissance instrumentalists poached the madrigals and motets of their day in the same way, and we feel that this later music goes just as beautifully on viols as the earlier vocal chamber music does. But of course we won’t be neglecting fantasies and dances from the viol consort’s core repertoire of English seventeenth-century instrumental compositions. For extra treats we have a recently composed piece in something like Tango Nuevo style, and the rarely heard sound of four bass gambas as envisaged by a Bohemian composer of the generation before J. S. Bach.”

Members of the consort are New Jersey natives Ilizabeth Cabrera and Douglas Hardin (bass viols), joined by New-Jerseyans-by-choice Roland Hutchinson (treble and bass viol), Sheryl Reed (tenor and bass viol), who immigrated from California and Long Island, respectively.

About the Cisraritanian Consort of Viols

The Cisraritanian Consort of Viols was established in 2010 as an outgrowth of the performing and teaching activities of Roland Hutchinson, a California-born, American-trained early-string specialist who has long hung out his shingle as the Garden State’s foremost exponent of the viola da gamba. (This, as the Star-Ledger has observed, is “comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.”)

“We took our name from the region we fondly and whimsically call ‘Cisraritania'—‘the land this side of the Raritan River,’ ” says Hutchinson, a longtime Montclair resident.

In addition to presenting its performing ensemble of New Jersey-based violists da gamba, the consort is developing projects to promote the viol and early music generally throughout metro New Jersey. The consort has given lecture-recitals and classes in viol playing for the Chamber Music Institute of the American String Teachers Association (New Jersey Chapter), a two-week residential course for young string players held on the campus of Kean University.

Hutchinson adds that, “we are actively seeking New Jersey amateur and professional string players who are interested in learning more about, or learning to play, the violas da gamba. They can often join one of our outreach activities at no or low cost.”

About the viol family

The viols are bowed stringed instruments, cousins to the violin family of our modern orchestra. Both families of bowed instruments made their first appearance in Europe at the very end of the 15th century.

The commonly encountered members of the viol family are the treble viol, tenor viol, and bass viol, corresponding roughly to the violin, viola, and cello in the violin family and, like them, varying in size according to their musical range. An ensemble of three, four, five, or six viols of assorted sizes is termed a “viol consort.”

Unlike the two violinists, one viola player, and one cellist of a modern string quartet, all members of a viol consort usually play more than one size of instrument, and the sizes of instrument required can vary between one composition and another. This flexibility is facilitated by the fact that all viols are held vertically (cello-wise; in Italian “da gamba,” i.e. using the legs—which is why the viols are also known as violas da gamba). Consequently, the playing technique remains similar for all the instruments of the consort despite their considerable variation in size.

Lightly built, with a flat back, six or seven strings, and tied gut frets on the fingerboard, the viols are tuned similarly to plucked instruments such as the guitar or lute, and they share certain acoustical characteristics with these, being built in a way that favors resonance rather than absolute volume of tone. Perhaps because they are quieter than the violins, the had fallen out of widespread use by the end of the 18th century as the focus of music making moved from smaller private spaces to large, public concert halls.

After resting unseen, unheard, and all but ­unremembered for over a hundred years, the viols, along with other early instruments such as the harpsichord and recorder, started to be revived toward the end of the 19th century as early instrumental music began attracting devotees—few in number at first, but steadily increasing throughout the course of the 20th century and into the 21st. The Viola da Gamba Society of America, founded in 1964, currently numbers well over a thousand members, and the instrument is now taught at leading conservatories and music schools worldwide.

In addition to historical repertoire from the 16th through the 18th centuries, both the viola da gamba as a solo instrument and the viol consort as a chamber ensemble possess surprisingly large repertoires of new music from the 20th and 21st centuries. The Viola da Gamba Society of America database of new music for viols currently lists just over a thousand compositions and continues to grow as both newly composed and newly discovered music is added to it.

About the members of the Consort

Consort founder Roland Hutchinson has performed on viola da gamba with groups including Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (San Francisco), the Bach Aria Group, and the Boston Camerata; taught viola da gamba at Stanford University, at Sarah Lawrence College, and at Montclair State University; demonstrated the viola da gamba and historical string technique for the Juilliard School and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; lectured on the baryton and on early tuning systems for the Viola da Gamba Society of America; and taught at workshops for the Society and its regional chapters, for Viols West, and for Amherst Early Music. In addition to broadcast performances on public radio in the USA and on Dutch television, his recording credits include discs on the Erato and Centaur labels as well as the Hauschka Ensemble's CD of the complete music for two barytons by Joseph Haydn on Esoteric Binaural.

Mr. Hutchinson studied viola da gamba with the noted American teachers Sarah Cunningham and John Hsu, and musicology and early-music performance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Stanford University. In his modern-instrument life in New Jersey, in addition to doing a bit of conducting and composing when he can, he has served as principal viola and/or acting concertmaster of the Livingston, Ridgewood,and Metropolitan symphony orchestras, the Baroque Orchestra of New Jersey, the August Symphony Orchestra, the Garden State Sinfonia, and the orchestras of New Jersey Concert Opera, the Essex County Summer Players, and the Society of Musical Arts. He has been profiled in “I am New Jersey,” the Star-Ledger series “about New Jerseyans who make the Garden State a better place.”

Ilizabeth Cabrera has a Bachelors in Music from Hartt School of Music (Hartford, CT) and a Master of Music Degree from Mason Gross School of the Arts of Rutgers University. She studied cello with David Finckel, Paul Olefsky, David Wells, Stephen Kates, and Yehuda Hanani, and participated in master classes with Raya Garbousova and Mstislav Rostropovich. She studied viola da gamba with Mary Ann Ballard. Ms. Cabrera maintains an active teaching studio in Whippany and performs professionally the Early Music Players, the Dolce Trio, the PEL Chamber Trio, Rosetta, and other area ensembles. She also performs as a freelance cellist with orchestras and choral groups throughout the tri-state area.

Douglas Hardin is a native New Jerseyan who has played in numerous local orchestras and chamber groups as a cellist and a gambist for over fifty years. As gambist his local credits include work with The Madrigal Singers, the Sine Nomine Consort, and the Nicolai Consort. During four years in England while studying molecular physics as a Churchill Scholar at the University of Cambridge he was a member of the Cambridge Consort of Viols. He was a cello student of Mary Gili, Laszlo Varga, and Janos Starker, and a viola da gamba student of Jane Ryan and Laura Jeppesen.

Sheryl Reed studied cello and music education at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. A former principal cellist of the Livingston Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Reed started playing the tenor viol a few years ago as a participant in the Cisraritanian Consort of Viols outreach program to local string players. She has also performed locally with the Ridgewood and South Orange symphony orchestras and in the orchestras of numerous musical theater productions. A notable project was a recital on cello of music by Bach, Gershwin, and Piazzolla in collaboration with pianist Greg Dlugos. She enjoys teaching cello privately to both children and adults.