Guillaume de Machaut’s La Messe de Nostre Dame
Vocal Ensemble:
Maddy Kushan
Lucy McKnight
Anastasia Shmytova
Clara Elena Montes
Roy DeMarco
Eli Berman
Tim Manley
Michael Martin
Demestvo is excited to present a new program centering around one of the musical masterpieces of the European Middle Ages: Guillaume de Machaut’s Messe de Nostre Dame. The program embeds this work in its liturgical context, supplementing a Gregorian Introit chant, an Alleluia motet by Machaut’s contemporary, Philippe de Vitry, and a Trinitarian motet by fifteenth-century composer Guillaume Dufay.
Named after a Slavic polyphonic chant tradition, Demestvo is a vocal ensemble founded by musicology PhD student and soprano Anastasia Shmytova. Conceived as part of her dissertation research on medieval Slavic chant and early polyphony, Demestvo is committed to bringing the unique sound worlds of lesser-known early music traditions to contemporary audiences.
