The schedule for the William Byrd Festival this year is up. It might be the greatest musico-liturgical event of the year. The dates are August 13-29, Portland, Oregon.
Dr. Richard Marlow of Trinity College, Cambridge, England will return to Portland to conduct Cantores in Ecclesia in a two-week festival of choral masterpieces by the greatest composer of the English Renaissance, William Byrd (1540–1623). The festival will feature six liturgical services, three concerts and six public lectures. The services include Byrd’s Masses for Three, Four, and Five Voices, Compline and Evensong from the Anglican rite, Mass for the Assumption with selections from the Gradualia of 1607. The opening concert on August 13 features tenor Oliver Mercer and Mark Williams on harpsichord and organ in a program of Byrd’s consort songs; the Festival Concert on Aug 29, directed by Dr. Marlow, includes Byrd’s moving setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah.