Tickets on sale as Seicento looks back at the Birth of Baroque

More than 400 years ago, three city-states in what is now Italy – Venice, Florence, and Rome – brought melody to the forefront and created the sound of baroque music’s Prima Melodia.
Join Seicento Founder and Artistic Director Evanne Browne April 26-28 in Denver, Boulder, and Longmont in her finale with Seicento before she retires after this program.
Browne is joined by the 36-voice Seicento choir, teno Daniel Hutchings, theorbo virtuoso Billy Simms, harpsichordist Webb Wiggins, and four of Seicento’s Apprentice Artists – vocal soloists who have been studying with Browne to enhance their baroque embellishment skills.
Buy Tickets for Prima Melodia
Performances:
  • Friday, April 26, 7:30 p.m., St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 1600 Grant Ave., Denver. Note: The April 26 concert will also be simulcast, with access to the simulcast availble for a fee online.
  • Saturday, April 27, 7:30 p.m., Mountain View United Methodist Church, 355 Ponca Place, Boulder.
  • Sunday, April 28, 3 p.m., United Church of Christ Longmont, 1500 9th Ave., Longmont.
Ticket Prices:
  • $30 General Admission and simulcast.
  • $10 Students and students attending simulcast.
  • $50 Front Row VIP Seating
  • $20 Community Access (limit two per order)
Please note: A small service fee applies for all online orders. Tickets also available at the door.

Learn More About Prima Melodia

Seicento Artistic Director Evanne Browne to retire after April 2024 concerts

Seicento announces search for its next artistic director

Seicento Baroque Ensemble Artistic Director Evanne Browne
Richard Saxon Photography

Evanne Browne, current artistic director for Seicento Baroque Ensemble, plans to retire from the baroque ensemble she founded in 2011 following the group’s “Prima Melodia” concerts set for April 26-28. Browne’s final concerts will focus on the musical revolution that took place in the city-states of Florence, Venice, and Rome in the early 1600s, the seicento. This then-new style emphasized singing and the singer’s ability to express emotion and emphasize melody, rather than focusing on the counterpoint and polyphony that characterized music of the Renaissance.

To find Seicento’s next artistic director, the ensemble’s board of directors announced its plans to identify candidates by April 1. Selected top candidates will conduct audition rehearsals with the Seicento choristers April 29 in Boulder, with the new artistic director taking over the group by July 1.

Criteria and plans for finding Seicento’s new artistic director

Founded in 2011, Seicento Baroque Ensemble is a semi-professional, 36-person auditioned chamber choir performing lesser-known music of the 17th and 18th centuries using historically informed performance practices and period instruments. Seicento’s repertoire favors early and middle Baroque composers who inspired the more familiar masters whose music Seicento also performs. 

Concerts may include collaborations with other period instrumentalists or other musical genre ensembles, dancers, actors, choirs, artwork, or film. Seicento’s mission emphasizes education for choristers, audiences, and students. We also engage and mentor emerging professional musicians in baroque vocal and instrumental technique.

Seicento presents two projects per year (fall and spring), and one to two outreach workshops or presentations. Regular rehearsals are held in Boulder, Colorado, on Mondays from 7:15 p.m.–9:30 p.m., with a hiatus in the summer.

Read the full position announcement.

Thanks to all who attended our meld of jazz and baroque

Seicento Baroque Ensemble joined with jazz artists from the Mark Diamond Trio, early music improv expert Tina Chancey, harpsichordist/jazz pianist Wesley Leffingwell, and a trio of our Apprentice Artists to present workshops and concerts in Lafayette, Longmont, and (in a Seicento first) Golden. The events Feb. 29-March 2 explored the surprising similarities in music making between baroque music and today’s jazz.
Rehearsals begin now for our final concert of the season:  Prima Melodia, focusing on the musical revolution that took place in the city-states of Florence, Venice, and Rome in the early 1600s. This then-new style emphasized singing and the singer’s ability to express emotion and emphasize melody, rather than focusing on the counterpoint and polyphony that characterized music of the Renaissance.
Performances will take place April 26-28 in Denver, Longmont and Boulder. You’ll find details on our Current Season page.

Seicento names apprentice artists for 2024 

An important part of Seicento Baroque Ensemble’s mission is education, and we are serious about it. This year, we are thrilled to work with our apprentice artists on ornamentation and singing style in Italy’s early 1600s, revealing the mysteries of monody, the thrills of trillo, and the majesty of melody, all a part of the then- “new style” of solo song. Congratulations to these five professional singers: Emily Anderson, Ann Jeffers, Rex (Pak Yue) Man, Gabrielle Razafinjatovo, and Andrea Weidemann. Competitively selected through audition and interviews, they will participate in master classes and private coaching, and then perform at our spring concerts in March and April.
Seicento welcomes your financial support year round to help defray costs and present concerts. Seicento is Colorado's premier vocal ensemble that specializes in the compositions of the Baroque era (1600-1750), using historically informed vocal practices and instruments of that time period. Some of Seicento's favorite composers include Monteverdi, Fernandes, Charpentier, Schütz, Mielczewski, Carissimi, Zipoli, and Buxtehude—less known in the history books, but worthy of rediscovery and performance.

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