Boston Camerata Releases a New Album of Rebellious Early American Music, Free America! Songs of Resistance and Rebellion (1790-1860) on Harmonia Mundi

The release coincides with live performances of Free America! in Boston, MA at historic Faneuil Hall; Portland, ME; and in Strasbourg, France, Sister City of Boston and the childhood home of Camerata Artistic Director Anne Azéma

Download photos and CD liner notes

For immediate release (Boston, MA—August 22, 2019) The Boston Camerata, cited as “America’s foremost early music ensemble” by Le Monde, embarks on a celebration of music from the time of the American Revolution with the release of Free America! Songs of Resistance and Rebellion (1790-1860), a new project recorded by Harmonia Mundi. The album release on September 13, 2019 will be complemented by live concerts of Free America! in Sister Cities Boston, MA and Strasbourg, France, as well as in Portland, ME.

First commissioned by the Paris Philharmonie in a program Early Music America called “profoundly researched and well thought out,” Free America! celebrates ideas fostered by the young American Republic in the late 1700s and early 1800s that continue to be debated to this day. Union, Liberty, and Democracy were the unifying ideals of the federation: a desire for a new social harmony, a new system of common beliefs, on a new soil which was often equated to the Promised Land.

“This music is about the soul of the American founding generation. There is strong momentum and connection in looking backward and being able to invent forward,” says Boston Camerata Artistic Director Anne Azéma.

Having scattered the European foes, young America’s preoccupation turned to establishing a community of people with common interests. Music and poetry actively participated in this process, delivering insights and multiple visions of the future, along with moral and spiritual authority.

Alongside the figures of the ‘Founding Fathers’ such as George Washington, there were also thinkers and spiritual leaders like Thomas Paine who wrote two of the most influential pamphlets at the beginning of the American Revolution, inspiring the new Americans to declare independence in 1776. Ordinary citizens, the ‘Common Man’ such as sailors, soldiers, and poor immigrants, all were to have a place in this new Promised Land, each with his or her hope for a democratic society.

The repertoire of Free America! consists of music for voices, for voices with instruments, and for instruments alone. Each of these settings, employing straightforward texts and musical language, speaks directly to the hearts and minds of the performers. Several works, including songs from the manuscript musical archive of the Maine Shaker community, evoke the injustices of slavery. The instrumental music comes from various sources, including manuscript booklets from the hands of early flutists and fiddlers.

Listen to a sample of “Free America” on Spotify

For a copy of the physical or digital album, please use press contacts below

IN CONCERT: Free America! Songs of Resistance and Rebellion (1790-1860)

October 5, 2019, 8pm

Palais de la Musique, Auditorium Cassin, Strasbourg, France

Free to the public at large

URL: https://bostoncamerata.org/performances/touring/ 

November 8, 2019, 8pm
Faneuil Hall, 4 S. Market St, Boston, MA 02109
Tickets: $26-$63; students $10
URL: https://bostoncamerata.org/performances/boston-series/

December 1, 2019, 4pm
Portland Ovations, Hannaford Hall, USM Campus, 88 Bedford Street, Portland, ME 04101
Tickets: $47-$51

URL: https://boxoffice.porttix.com/boston-camerata-portland-ovations-portland-maine

About The Boston Camerata
The Boston Camerata occupies a unique place in the densely populated universe of European and American early music ensembles. Camerata's distinguished rank stems partly from its longevity: founded in 1954, when the field of endeavor was in its infancy, as an adjunct to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts' musical instruments collection, Camerata is now one of the longest-lived groups to be functioning, and vigorously so, up to the present day.

But length of service, by itself is not sufficient to account for Camerata's preeminence, nor are its numerous distinctions, including the American Critics' Circle Award, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, residencies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Tennessee, and the Grand Prix du Disque. The Boston Camerata has achieved its eminence in large part because of its willingness to approach, with consistent success, many kinds of historical repertoires from many centuries, from the early Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, and from many places and cultures, stretching from the Middle East to early New England, with numerous intermediate stops in Renaissance and Baroque Europe and Latin America. Directed from 1969 to 2009 by Joel Cohen, and from 2009 to the present day by French-born vocalist, scholar and stage director Anne Azéma, the Boston Camerata has continued to create, over more than a half-century of activity, a very large number of concert and recorded productions.

Two new recordings appear in 2019: Treasures of Devotion presents music from the early Renaissance and Free America! Songs of Resistance and Rebellion renews a historic of the ensemble with Harmonia Mundi.

bostoncamerata.org

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