Festival 2025 «ARCADIA»

I’ll be there

by DAVID FALLOWS

 

I’ll be there!
by David Fallows

The “ARCADIA” festival on 26–28 September offers so much that it’s hard to know where to begin. With Poliziano’s Orpheus? With Encina’s take on Vergil’s Eclogues? With Maddalena Casulana’s madrigals from the earliest print of music by a woman? With Raphaella Aleotti’s motets from the earliest print of church music by a woman? Or with the ‘green’ statement of “mein Baum dein Baum” that spectacularly supports our need to be more aware of nature? (I write this the day after a melted glacier annihilated the lovely village of Blatten.)

No. The main point is that we have another three-day festival of Renaissance music in Basel, a stunningly attractive successor to the Maximilian festival two years ago, a serious alternative to the early music festivals in Utrecht and Antwerp, an explosive statement that there is a massive and growing audience for this music in Basel, that the seed planted by Paul Sacher almost a century ago continues to grow more and more impressively, and that, as before, we can expect many visitors from other countries. Let’s do all we can to welcome those visitors and make sure that this tradition continues.

The second ReRenaissance festival “ARCADIA” explores themes of humans living in harmony with the environment, of nature in music and art, and of course the theme of Arcadia’s most famous resident, Orpheus, the demi-god who charmed the gods of Hades for a chance to bring back his beloved Euridice from the dead.  Flip through the flyer containing the full program here.

5 Main Concerts

The Festival mainstage concerts all take place in the Martinskirche (tickets required). The Festival opens with the world-renowned Profeti della Quinta, presenting “Madrigalfest”, a programme of madrigals set in Arcadia, describing nature and the love between nymphs and shepherds. Among the composers are Maddalena Casulana, whose first book of madrigals is the the first music print by a woman.  

On Saturday evening, Le Miroir de Musique presents “Fabula di Orfeo” by Angelo Poliziano. Only the text to this musical drama survives, but Baptiste Romain, director, has been researching the kind of improvised music that would have accompanied such a text, and has created a version as it might have sounded in Mantua in the 1480s.  

New to the festival in 2025 is a late-night concert. Basel·ReRenaissance celebrates the sun in its absence with “Fair Oriana” – English Madrigals for the Queen, a performance of The Triumphs of Oriana, printed in 1601 by Thomas Morley and directed by Elizabeth Rumsey.  

Following on the success of 2023’s sacred programme for a Sunday morning, Basel·ReRenaissance also presents “Veni in hortum meum,” a collection of motets with texts from the song of songs, including motets by Raphaella Aleotti’s 1593 collection, the first sacred music to be published by a woman. These will be performed with voices, trombones and cornetti, led by Tamsin Cowell Catherine Motuz.  

Our mainstage series closes on Sunday evening with a programme “Pastorçico” by Ensemble Danguy, which explores the dream of Arcadia on the Iberian peninsula. Led by Tobie Miller, this ensemble combineds hurdy-gurdy, viola d’arco, vilhuela, and Renaissance guitar with singing and recitation, presenting the audience with Juan del Encina’s version of Virgil’s Eclogues, which describes Arcadia as the home of the musical god Pan.  

Family Concert

For the first time, we are organizing a family concert under the direction of Tabea Schwartz on Saturday at 11:00 am in the Kartäuserkirche. This fun, free concert, telling the story of Frederick the Mouse accompanied by Renaissance music, is entertaining for young and old. 

Flash Concerts

Returning after a successful pilot programme in 2023, ReRenaissance will present five free 30-minute flash concerts, which give a performance platform to rising star ensembles: Traverso Consort Loreley, Syrens, KIMA and Flores y Canciones.  On Saturday at 17:00, the Basler Stadtposaunenchor, which is already involved in ReRenaissance in our 2024 Christmas singalong concert, will join us again to play music from the Renaissance from the Münster towers. 

Festival Opening

Next to these more traditional musical offerings, ReRenaissance also welcomes the public to join it on Friday before the first mainstage concert with a circle dance on Fasnachtsgasse (behind the Barfüsserkirche), to the sound of bagpipes and the [hanse] Pfeyfferey, followed by a festive parade past the Münster and to the Martinskirche.  

Music market

On Saturday, ReRenaissance presents a music market bringing together historical instrument makers from Basel and further away, as well as vendors of books and editions about early music.

Speakers

Three scholars (Dr. Julie Cumming, Dr. Silke Leopold, and Dr. Axel Gampp) will give lectures and pre-concert talks. Additionally, a roundtable discussion “Trouble in Paradise” will explore such contemporary issues in early music such as gender diversity, colonialism, and environmental sustainability.

The untouched nature represented in Arcadia stands in stark juxtaposition the environemental issues that occupy us today, and the Festival acknowledges this with a partnership with Basel initiative mein Baum dein Baum, which plants trees  all over the city. ReRenaissance will donate 1% of sales from tickets and passes as well as a chance to showcase the work they do.

We also are coordinating tours of the Musikmseum and the UB Botanical Garden.

The 2025 ReRenaissance Festival, “ARCADIA” has something for everyone, and we look forward to the chance to reach out and welcome new audiences to discover the diversity of Renaissance music and culture.