exstasis - volumes 1&2

labium ensemble

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Labium Ensemble is the ensemble that I formed in 2001, which was originally born in order to enable me to explore my love of this early music. This coincided with me having decided to learn the viola, and not long after we formed, I purchased one and set about unlocking it’s mysteries.

The two other original members were mother and daughter team Chris Tammer (composer, continuo, violin, viola, recorders, voice) and Carly Haddad (cello, voice) who shared this passion with me equally. Due to Chris and Carly’s other commitments, two new members were added in 2003. Sarah Burrowes (composer, continuo, recorders, voice) and Anastasia Russell-Head (harpsichord/recorder). In this guise and with various guests, Labium Ensemble performed several times in Melbourne and Daylesford throughout 2004/2005. The repertoire in the main, consisted of pieces by such composers as Telemann, Bach, Purcell, Bononcini, Scarlatti, Pepusch, Fux, Loiellet, Handel,  and many more.

It was intended that these concerts were approached differently from most of the dreary early music concerts that I had experienced. We wanted to spice it up a bit and get closer to the audience, and we did that, in that there was a fair amount of scripted talking, with an emphasis on humour and candour, in an attempt to ‘revamp’ the false distance that we felt was created at a lot of the so called ‘high-brow’ concerts.

So to that end, contexts and histories were given for each work and composer, and in keeping with the improvisatory attitude of the Baroque era, much liberty was taken with regard to the performance of the pieces themselves, much to the amusement of some (others were apparently less amused by this!). These things together drew a satisfyingly younger audience, who sought to connect with this ‘genre’ of music which many thought whilst very beautiful, was generally presented in a ‘stuffy’, ‘pseudo-academic’ manner, and failed to engage the children of the cinematic age, whose attention span had dwindled alarmingly, and , sometimes, rather amusingly. Seeing this youthful interest rise in proportion to the contextual aspect of the ensemble, I became interested in centralising this aspect of the show, and further purely musical recital type performances were put on hold whilst the scripts and scenarios were developed and costumes and sets designed and planned. As a result, the ‘orchestral’ project Extasis was born, with plans for performance and recording contexts.

Thematically, Exstasis explores the trials and tribulations faced by composers and musicians throughout the ages, from about the 14th century until contemporary times; often drawing parallels between the two to startling effect. Using both historical compositions and new works composed by Labium Ensemble members, Exstasis aims again to bring early music to a younger audience and at the same time, explore how the role of artist has either changed or stagnated throughout history, right up to the current practises of the day which I’m sure would have left all of the aforementioned composers both baffled and somewhat deflated.

Volume 1 concentrates on what would be classified as ‘sacred music’ and naturally enough, Volume 2 contains works in that other classification of the day – ‘secular’, which seems at first to be an arbitrary decision, yet by and by makes perfect sense upon familiar listening. Whilst Volume 1 seems to represent the church and state and all that is authoritarian, indeed even God itself, Volume 2 is centred around ‘the common people’ and the everyday usage of both the sacred and the profane in musical life. On both volumes, there are great variations in orchestration and the performance elements are well grouped, telling a story of expansion and change.

As at this writing, the Exstasis project is on the back-burner due to the many ‘over-commitments’ of the Labium Ensemble’s floating members, (as well as myself) but plans for some recordings and performances are still high on the wish-list for most of us. More material will be posted in the coming months, so stay tuned…(apparently, to either 440 or 415!)