The 12th Aurore celebrates the 500th anniversary of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina! We are thrilled to welcome our audience once again to the church of St. Paul in from 30th January to 2nd February 2025.
All our concerts take place in the architecturally and acoustically magnificent church of St. Paul in Vallila, Helsinki. 45 minutes before each concert we invite the audience to meet the artists, hear a short presentation of the evenings repertoire and instruments, and enjoy a warming cup of coffee or tea.
Founded in 2014, Aurore is the only music festival in Finland specifically focused on renaissance music. We strive to bring forward the wonderful and vivid, yet rarely heard repertoire from ca. 1450–1600, performed by the leading renaissance specialists in music. The festival aims to give the audience a comprehensive view to the captivating world of the renaissance era via an exceptionally detailed program leaflet and the laid back Meet&Greet – events with the artists before each concert. The highly skilled artists performing in Aurore are specialised in early music and the performance practises and instruments of the renaissance era.
Aurores artistic planning is led by an artistic committee, which includes singers Mats Lillhannus and David Hackston, singer and choir conductor George Parris, early music flutist Sini Vahervuo, and lutenist Mikko Ikäheimo.
“Renaissance music is beautiful, empowering and meditative. The feeling of shared humanity in the music flows through us when listening to it, and makes us forget how old the music truly is. Renaissance music still has a voice today, and it continues to touch the people of the 21st century equally as much as the audiences of its own time.”
–Kari Turunen, founding member and the first artistic director of Aurore
CONCERTS
All concerts in St. Paul’s church (Sammatintie 5, Helsinki). Duration ca. an hour, no intermissions. Meet&Greet with the artists and free coffee 45 min before each concert at St. Paul’s parish hall.
Thu 30th Jan at 7 pm • Escapades – The Secular Music of Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina is often termed one of the foremost, if not the most significant, composer of the 16th century. His compositional technique has been idealised as a model for how counterpoint should be performed, and his work has been studied extensively ever since. His life’s work was in service of the Catholic Church, both in St. Peter’s and other central churches in Rome, but among his earliest musical publications is also a masterly collection of secular madrigals.
This red rose of a musical work, featuring texts of natural beauty and sensual love, reveals Palestrina as a leading composer of the Italian madrigalian style. However, roses come with thorns, and this collection — along with the fact that he was married and had children — led to complications. He was fired from his first appointment at the Vatican when a new pope took office because he was not ordained, and in the preface to a later collection of motets he apologetically refers to his earlier worldly works as ‘youthful delusions’.
We contrast this unexplored side to Palestrina with the secular works of Orlando di Lasso. As a court composer in Munich, Lassus had no need to be ashamed of his more risqué output. A particular curiosity part of his list of works consists of secular motets with a Latin text. These are often about the consumption of wine, but we also find incantations over biting fleas as well as a plethora of puns in Latin.
Curated by singer Mats Lillhannus, the programme is performed by Cappella Praenestina, a vocal ensemble specially assembled for this occasion.
6.15 pm – Meet the artist and free coffee at St. Pauls parish hall
7.00 pm – Concert begins at St. Pauls church
Musicians
Cappella Praenestina:
- Linnéa Sundfaer Casserly
- Sirkku Rintamäki
- Mats Lillhannus
- Martti Anttila
- Valter Maasalo
- Petri Arvo, recorders & dulcian
- Mikko Ikäheimo, lute
Composers
- Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Fri 31st Jan at 7 pm • In the Sweet Shade of the Forest – Nature’s Voice in Italian Madrigals
Friday’s concert brings us a rare treat: the exquisite combination of renaissance flute consort Intra Vires (FIN) with the viola da gamba and voice of Duo Accenti (UK). Featuring the eminent British soprano Hannah Ely, the programme follows the footsteps of Italian madrigalists of the sixteenth century as they tried to give voice to nature. Lush melodies draw from the Mediterranean countryside, replete with the scents of laurel and orange trees, and the appeal of the wilder nature further to the north. Also included are songs from the pioneering English composer John Dowland, bringing with them the strains of melancholy.
The programme explores elements of nature – the lush forest, busy meadows teeming with life, the calmness of the open sky. Renaissance artists often depicted an inner landscape enlivened by ‘affects’ – emotions – but sometimes even actual birdsong, the textures of foliage and the gentle humming of forests appear within the polyphony. When the narrator’s gaze turns to this inward realm, the whole spectrum of human experience is revealed, circling through moods of melancholy and merriment rather like the turning of the seasons.
Instrumental numbers surround and set a backdrop for the stories in the songs. The two ensembles use the versatile textures of their combined instrumental forces to bring out these varying landscapes, and vividly recount a Renaissance courtly spectacle for the modern listener through their storytelling.
Small thickets, with the scented laurel gay,
Cedar, and orange, full of fruit and flower,
Myrtle and palm, with interwoven spray,
Pleached in mixed modes, all lovely, form a bower;
And, breaking with their shade the scorching ray,
Make a cool shelter from the noontide hour.
And nightingales among those branches wing
Their flight, and safely amorous descants sing.
(Ludovico Ariosto, 1516 Orlando Furioso. Canto VI ottava 21)
6.15 pm – Meet the artist and free coffee at St. Pauls parish hall
7.00 pm – Concert begins at St. Pauls church
Musicians
Duo Accenti (UK)
- Hannah Ely, soprano
- Harry Buckoke, viola da gamba
Traversoconsort Intra vires
renaissance flutes:
- Vera Plosila, cantus
- Eerika Perkkiö, altus
- Sini Vahervuo, tenor
- Ilkka Eronen, bassus
- Olli Hyyrynen, lute
Composers
- Guillaume de Wert
- Cipriano de Rore
- Maddalena Casulana
- John Dowland
- Alfonso Ferrabosco
- Luca Marenzio
- Philippe Verdelot
Sat 1st Feb at 7 pm • Praeter rerum seriem – Guest concert Arte Minima (Portugal)
On Saturday we welcome the Portuguese ensemble Arte Minima led by Pedro Sousa Silva and featuring our very own David Hackston. Their programme explores echoes and parodies of Josquin des Prez found in the music of Portuguese composers Vicente Lusitano (c. 1520–1561) and Manuel Rebelo (c. 1545–1647).
After hearing Josquin’s iconic motet Præter rerum seriem, Rebelo’s ‘parody mass’ (that is, a mass where motives from an existing work are used for compositional invention) will be brought to life, having been recovered from manuscripts belonging to Évora Cathedral in Southern Portugal. Lusitano’s own motet Præter rerum seriem will also be performed, demonstrating his luminous style of polyphony along with the evident popularity of this mysterious text and, of course, the Josquin setting to which it responds.
Also including a rarely-heard motet by Palestrina which contains material from Josquin, Arte Minima’s program reveals a fascinating picture of musical quotations, tributes and skilfully woven Renaissance counterpoint, performed with dedication and expertise.
6.15 pm – Meet the artist and free coffee at St. Pauls parish hall
7.00 pm – Concert begins at St. Pauls church
Musicians
Arte Minima
- Irene Brigitte – soprano
- Ana Rosa – soprano
- David Hackston – alto
- Nuno Raimundo – tenor
- Ricardo Leitão Pedro – tenor
- Luís Neiva – bass
- António Godinho – recorder
- Carlos Sánchez – recorder
- João Távora – recorder
- Silvia Cortini – recorder
- Pedro Sousa Silva – recorder and musical lead
Composers
- Josquin des Prez
- Manuel Rebelo
- Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina
- Vicente Lusitano
Sun 2nd Feb at 6 pm • Missa Papae Marcelli – Celebrating Palestrina 500
Aurore’s closing concert celebrates the 500th anniversary of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina with his, and arguably the Renaissance period’s, most important work: the six-part Mass Missa Papae Marcelli.
This legendary work, along with its creator, has even been awarded the honour of having saved European polyphonic music from the purging zeal of the Counter-Reformation. Even among Palestrina’s extensive and consistently high-quality work, the Missa Papae Marcelli stands out as the most perfect example of the so-called stile antico and has been studied and imitated extensively over the centuries since it was published.
It is a natural choice, then, to present the Missa Papae Marcelli alongside Palestrina’s other most supremely crafted motets, expressively performed by vocal ensemble I dodici under the musical direction of choir conductor and Palestrina specialist Kari Turunen. A founding member of both I Dodici and Aurore Renaissance Music Festival, Turunen currently works as the artistic director of the Vancouver Chamber Choir in Canada.
Please note the 6 pm time of the concert, which is different than other Aurore concerts!
5.15 pm – Meet the artist and free coffee at St. Pauls parish hall
6.00 pm – Concert begins at St. Pauls church
Musicians
- Conductor Kari Turunen
- Ilpo Laspas, organ
I Dodici:
- Linnéa Sundfær Casserly, soprano
- Sirkku Rintamäki, soprano
- David Hackston, alto/tenor
- Mats Lillhannus, tenor
- Jaime Belmonte, tenor
- Juho Punkeri, tenor
- Martti Anttila, tenor
- George Parris, tenor
- Valter Maasalo, barytone
- Sampo Haapaniemi, bass
- Riku Laurikka, bass
- Antti Vahtola, bass
Composer
- Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
St. Paul’s Church
St. Paul’s Church (Paavalinkirkko), Sammatintie 5, Helsinki, is easily accessible by trams number 6 and 8 as well as a number of busses. See Reittiopas for connections.
Tickets
Tickets are available in Aurore’s online ticket shop and an hour in advance at the door by card or cash.
- single concert €25/20
- festival pass €65/55
You can also purchase tickets at Lippupiste, where the price will include an additional service fee.
Ticket inquiries: liput(at)aurore.fi
Renessanssimusiikkia Paavalinkirkossa ry.
VAT ID FI25853317
Co. Mats Lillhannus
Pääskyvuorenkatu 41 • 20540 Turku • Finland
Festival Manager Sanni Antikainen:
info(at)aurore.fi