To benefit the 10th Annual Montana Early Music Festival
Saturday, January 21, 9:15 am, Brunch, followed with HD broadcast of the
fantastical Baroque opera pastiche
“The Enchanted Island”
Broadcast presented at the Helena Cinemark, Great Northern Center
$35 per person (Champagne Brunch + Opera Ticket).
Call Darien at 431-7464 .
To benefit the 10th Annual Montana Early Music Festival
Annual Wine Tasting and Silent Auction
Saturday, February 4, 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm, Sommelier’s,
361 North Last Chance Gulch, Helena
Wines, Tapas, Door Prizes, Silent Auction & Wine Basket Raffle
Jazz Piano with Alex Swaney
$25 per person
Call Darien at 431-7464 by February 2.
Limited Space. Must Reserve Early!
Oh Boy!!! We are on TV!!! Helena Civic Television (HCTV) came to our 9 April 2011 Monteverdi Concert at St. John’s Lutheran Church….THANK YOU for filming us!!! They show their schedule, updated most weekdays, and when we are scheduled to be on their channel, YOU can stream the video through your Internet connection, too!!! Here is the HCTV schedule page
If you want to hear some wonderful singing and continuo, consider coming to the concerts Musikanten Montana will present this evening at Helena MT, and tomorrow afternoon in Anaconda MT. Click our link Montana Early Music Festival Continues!!!! for details. It will allow your soul to float….
In addition to the complete mass, Musikanten will do two Josquin motets; the Gregorian Chant choir will sing all other service music.
Hi, folks,
Our big annual FUNd-raiser for our Montana Early Music Festival is this Saturday night — a wine-tasting and silent auction from 5:30 to 7:30 at Sommelier’s here in Helena.
The party should be LOTS of fun — our soprano Alex Swaney is better known to most Montanans as one of the leading jazz musicians in the state. She is bringing her friends MJ Williams and Wilbur Rehmann — two jazz legends in themselves — to help her out. (I think the problem will be pulling people away from the music to BID at the auction!) Toby is excited about doing BLENDS this year for the wines — when I asked Alex what kind of wine goes with jazz, she said, “EVERY kind of wine!” So we have blends!! There will be appetizers, soft drinks/juice if you don’t want wine, door prizes and a wine basket raffle to add to the excitement.
We have some wonderful and unusual items up for sale at the auction this year and we want everyone to have a chance to take a look and to bid. Linda Almas has created a PDF with pictures of most of the items and, working with her high-tech sons and their friends, devised a great way you can BID ON THESE ITEMS even if you can’t be in Helena at the party on Saturday night. If you are also a techie, check out the google bidding scheme; if you are more traditional, just shoot me an email, or call to put in your bids. We will have people on deck to take calls (and let you know if you are being out-bid so you can scramble to get your name on the bottom line of the bidding sheets), right up to the deadline at 7:20 pm Helena time. (Keep checking our website for the PDF…our webmaster is updating the pages tonight!!)
I’ve just come back from a whirlwind weekend in Vienna, doing advance work with Chris Hoh for our April 2012 tour — you won’t want to miss this one! You can lock in a great price by bidding on Item #13. Take a look at all the other goodies, and give us a call. All the profits go toward the production of this year’s Early Music Festival, 4 concerts in Helena and ANACONDA (look up the historic Washoe Theatre for an eyeful!), April 7-10.
Here’s your invitation to join us on our tour to Istanbul and Izmir, Sept 26-October 6!
Bob Reynolds has been teaching in Izmir since last fall and offered to write “a couple of paragraphs” to entice you to come visit. But first, here are my “couple of paragraphs.” 
Itinerary
This is a marvelous, diverse and fascinating country. I’ve been to Istanbul twice in the last few years and also to Kusadasi (where Ersun Oser, owner-chef at the Mediterranean Grill in Helena, is from) and Ephesus (shore excursions on a cruise from Venice). These two cities are on the Aegean coast, close to Izmir (Turkey’s 3rd largest city). I’m thinking we would spend 3 days in Izmir and surrounds; we would have an opportunity to meet with Bob’s students in our time there. We would spend most of the time in Istanbul, with plenty of free time for sightseeing there as well as opportunities to travel outside the city. There’s a nice boat trip on the Bosphorus, for those of you who like to get out on the water.
Cost
I expect the land costs to be similar to the past tours – hopefully under $1200 for 9 hotel nights with breakfast, half-day city tours in Istanbul and a tour of Ephesus, welcome party and farewell dinner AND flights from Istanbul to Izmir and back. As always, “groupies” are asked for a $200 (tax-deductible) donation, which helps offset music and other singers’ costs.
Airfare
The bad news is that airfare from DC to Istanbul is hovering (for 3 months now) around the $850 mark – pretty pricey. I flew in February from New York City (on Air France) for $653. (Actually, I didn’t. New York City was shut down with snow. I flew from Minneapolis to Amsterdam, and then on to Istanbul. I wondered why I couldn’t remember being at CDG this year.) Edith is watching airfares and will let us know if something amazing pops up, but we may have to wait for the airlines to assess their summer sales before they make their “shoulder season” offers. (However, if you are thinking about using frequent flyer miles, get on that ticket NOW!)
Extend
There is always the possibility to extend and stay longer – especially attractive given the long distance (11 hours returning from IST to JFK!) and high price of the flight. Athens is very close, if you want to head to Greece after we are finished. There are also plenty of interesting non-Big City things to see near Istanbul, and LOTS more of the country to visit. Bob says that flights within Turkey are very reasonable – after he spent 9 hours on a bus to come to Istanbul to meet me, one of his students told him he could have flown for $35. We’re checking that out!
Music
As for concert repertoire, it will be American music. I hope to get support of the expat communities – Turkish American Club, American Church etc. I’m not planning to do “In the Beginning,” but we’ll bring “Leonardo Dreams….” along again. I’m worried about rehearsal time, as usual, so I’m not planning much “new” music. You can look for “Naked and Alone,” our old Russell Woollen favorites, maybe some Irving Fine this time too.
Time line
I know many of you have been excited about this trip for a long time! Mary Spain is planning to join us from her new home in Germany, and Chris Hoh is coming from Vienna. We have several Montana folks coming. Please think about this seriously now. I would expect your registration with the $200 deposit to be due the end of May. In the meantime, I will nail down more of the trip details and have a better idea on price. Another $400 will be due July 1, $400 more August 1, and the remainder September 1.
Our 7th Concert Season in Helena is beginning again, and our first set of performances is the epitome of “early music” style. This beautiful music simply floats on the air.
It is our annual concert in memory of beloved family and friends, our All Souls Concert. We give to you: Tomas Luis de Vittoria’s Requiem Mass, which is music with a beautiful sense of peace and light.
Vittoria’s (or Victoria’s) a cappella six-voice Requiem was composed in 1603 for the court funeral of Empress Maria, his patron.
Come join us on Saturday, October 30, 7:00 pm, Saint John’s Lutheran Church, 1000 Helena Ave.
And on Monday, November 1, 7:00 pm, Saint Peter’s Episcopal Cathedral, 511 N. Park
To have a candle lit both evenings in memory of a loved one ($10), call 406 – 431-7464.
Admission at the door: $10
Please, take a look at our web gallery! We just added a couple pictures of M-D.C./M-MT performing in a lovely square in Istanbul.
Hey, folks,
Fall seems to be the “GIVING SEASON” and I just wanted to remind our friends that Musikanten Montana participates in the State Employees’ Charitable Giving Campaign. Our number is 5294 and we would love to be the recipient of your charitable giving! We are of course a 501(c)(3) non-profit and can be designated (as “Musikanten Inc.”) in ANY workplace giving program.
Also, a painless way to personally support Musikanten is through installing a GoodSearch/GoodShop toolbar, designating Musikanten Montana as your charity of choice. EVERY SEARCH you perform online will get us a few cents at least, and whenever you buy from GoodShop merchants (thousands of them), we automatically get a percentage of the purchase. You don’t have to do anything different from how you always surf the web. GoodSearch has 1.5 million users. Here’s the link to install the toolbar http://www.goodsearch.com/nonprofit/musikanten.aspx .
Thanks so much from the Maestra!!!
