Concord Vocal Sextet Drawn to Renaissance Spanish Music

Some of what’s newest on the musical scene is actually the result of digging through the annals of history. Where contemporary composers relish the notion of creating new pathways, early music enthusiasts delight in uncovering obscure or lesser-known byways of the repertory.

It was that investigative spirit that led, almost accidentally, to the formation of the Concord Ensemble, a male vocal sextet that will make its Southern California debut at Pepperdine today. The ensemble--tenors Daniel Carberg, Pablo Cora and N. Lincoln Hanks; bass Daniel Cole; countertenor Daniel Flight; and baritone Sumner Thompson--met three years ago as voice grad students Indiana University.

At first, they sang together casually, as a means of “reading” rare scores they came across. Then they made a connection with another campus institution, the Latin American Music Center, and did a concert of newly discovered colonial Latin American music under its auspices. When a syndicated National Public Radio program aired the performance, they had an inkling that they might have something more than a study group on their hands.

In 1998, they drew on their unique Latin American repertory in entering the Early Music America Recording Competition, sponsored by the Dorian record label, with a prize that included a one-CD deal. When they won, they turned professional and turned their attentions to another, related part of the musical globe, the rarely mined world of Spanish Renaissance and Baroque composers. Out of their research came a program the ensemble calls “The Victory of Santiago: Voices of Renaissance Spain.”

The Dorian CD came out last fall, and Concord has presented the concert program in a few places, in the form of a modest tour. The ensemble now has management, and a contract with Dorian for more recordings.

The rarities that pushed them so far into the limelight--and that will make up their program at Pepperdine--include works by Mateo Flecha, Cristobal de Morales, Juan Vasquez and Tomas Luis de Victoria. The name “Victory of Santiago” refers to the Flecha piece, “La Guerra,” in which the Spanish patron saint Santiago (Saint James) defeats the Moors.

It may be rare, but this music, Carberg notes, is “a hot item right now. It’s great music, very diverse. [It] runs from sacred music with such an intensity to it, to the secular pieces, which are so romantic. It’s quite striking. I’d never heard anything quite like it.”

“Traditionally,” says Cora, who is originally from Argentina, “even if you go into later repertoire, whether it be instrumental or vocal, there is a fairly intensive interest in works that are English, Italian, German or French. Even though, historically, there [were] courts and places of extreme interest, artistically and musically speaking, in other areas--the Dutch, the Spanish, Portuguese and so on. We wanted a chance to do this other stuff. That’s how we came up with this Spanish program.”

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The ensemble has become a stronger entity even as professional and academic opportunities have pulled it apart geographically. Hanks has recently joined the faculty at Pepperdine; two members are on the East Coast; the remaining three are still studying in Bloomington. The group convenes in Bloomington to rehearse and prepare for projects. Earlier this month, they were there to prepare for the Pepperdine concert and to work on another CD project, the music of Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck.

“It’s a perfect place,” Hanks says, by phone from Bloomington, “because we have facilities available to us. . . . There’s always support. The best thing about it is the library. Yesterday, we were able to grab all the extant works of Sweelinck. I can’t think of anywhere else that you can do that.”

Sweelinck is another composer who isn’t exactly a household name. “He is not quite obscure,” Cora says, “but he’s not one of the preferred composers. Certainly, his works haven’t been recorded much.”

Some of that, says Cora, is due to the nature of the compositions. “For example, most choirs [that would perform] this kind of music would limit themselves to four parts--soprano, alto, tenor, bass. But it makes it ideal for us, in many ways, because [using tenor, baritone, bass and countertenor is] the way the music was performed in its time, when women weren’t necessarily allowed to sing in the confines of the church.”

Is the group, in effect, seeking to fill musical voids?

“What we seek to do is just perform beautiful music that appeals to us,” Cora says, “that we think will touch people in some way.’

That includes some contemporary music--a new piece by Hanks will be performed today. But the focus of the Concord will remain on early music.

“A lot of treatises have been recently uncovered,” Carberg says, “and there’s new information on [ways of] performing old works. There are also a lot of old works coming to light. Really, the amount of music to be explored seems infinite right now.” *

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“The Victory of Santiago: Voices of Renaissance Spain,” Concord Ensemble, Pepperdine University, Raitt Recital Hall, 2 p.m. $20; (310) 456-4522.