Lunchtime Concert - Love Cannot Dissemble

The St. James' Lunchtime Concert on Wednesday 6th December at 1:15 pm will be performed by Brooke Green - treble viol and Ruby Brallier - treble and bass viols.

Programme:

Michael East 

Love Cannot Dissemble

Orlando Gibbons

Fantasias Nos.4 and 6

Matthew Locke        

Consort of Two Parts for Several Friends:                                     

        Suite No.3: Fantazie, Pavan, Ayre

Carl Friederich Abel    

Adagio in D minor

Anon                           

Prelude for Treble Viol

Godfrey Finger            

Sonata in G

Tobias Hume              

She loves it well                     

Love's Farewell

This programme features beautiful and intriguing duos and solos from some of seventeenth century England’s finest composers for viol. Love Cannot Dissemble, or the power of love and music in an age of war, is the underlying theme. Seventeenth century England was a notoriously fractious age with much of society destabilised due to the wars between royalists and parliamentarians. Cromwell’s Puritan government banned music almost everywhere, including in church. Many musicians had to find other patronage, often in domestic settings. Viewed in this context, music with a theme of love seems poignantly heartfelt, and music without programmatic themes a welcome retreat for players and listeners.            

Brooke Green is artistic director, composer and a viol player with Josie and the Emeralds, a consort of viols with soprano Josie Ryan. Brooke is an associate composer with the Australian Music Centre and her compositions are featured on The Emerald Phoenix CD (Tall Poppies). In 2010, after studying viol and vielle with Wendy Gillespie, Brooke graduated with a Masters in Early Music Performance from the Historical Performance Institute, Bloomington, Indiana University where she also was a performer of contemporary music on historical instruments. In 2023, Brooke performed a solo treble viol recital at St James Church, King St, Sydney and at the University of Limerick, Ireland as a guest artist for their lunch time series. She plays a treble viol after Henry Jaye, 1630, by Jane Julier.

Originally from Seattle, Washington, Ruby Brallier moved to Sydney in 2023 with her partner Giulian and their two cats Loki and Freyja. In the United States, Ruby’s recent appearances as a chamber musician included Capitol Early Music (Washington, D.C.), Les Délices (Cleveland), the Taylor Johnson Early Music Series at Michigan State University, University of Notre Dame, Oberlin Conservatory, Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, and Cranbrook Music Guild’s Chamber Artist Series. Ruby holds degrees in cello and viola da gamba from Oberlin Conservatory, University of Michigan, and Lawrence University. She plays a bass viol after Hendrik Jacobs by Canadian luthier Francis Beaulieu, and an 18th-century Klotz baroque cello.