2005-2006 SEASON REVIEW

After a full season of promoting the release of their second CD recording, the Suspicious Cheese Lords took the autumn of 2005 to rest, regroup, and research. In December their season started with two performances of Hodie! Celebrating the Christmas Spirit. At the Franciscan Monastery, the program began with the familiar chant Veni, veni Emmanuel, based on the ancient Magnificat antiphons. The haunting melody was accentuated by the building’s ample acoustic as the Lords processed up the stairs from one of the lower grottoes and around the church’s main level. This concert setting served as the world premier of There Were Abiding in the Fields by Cheese Lord Gordon Geise, and the American premier of O Kerstnacht by contemporary Dutch composer Luc Jakobs based on the celebrated yuletide poem by Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679). The Lords were joined by special guest organist, Carolyn Lamb Booth, who performed works by Bach, Daquin, Marco Enrico Bossi, and Charles-Alexis Chauvet. The Cheese Lords presented Renaissance works by Byrd, Morales, Marenzio, Guerrero and others. The ensemble also performed Gustav Holst’s setting of Christina Rosetti’s poem In the Bleak Midwinter, Morton Lauridsen’s new work for male voices Ave dulcissima Maria, and an arrangement of Night Watchman from the Sacred Harp songbook.

The Cheese Lords made their debut at the National Gallery of Art’s Sunday evening concert series with a reprisal of their Christmas concert. Held in the beautiful West Garden Court of the West Building, the event was emceed by Robert Aubrey Davis, host of public radio’s Millennium of Music. Among the works featured were Elzéar Genet’s Gabriel angelus, Samuel Scheidt’s eight-part Nu komm, der Heyden Heyland, and the ever-popular Iberian villancico Ríu, ríu, chíu. The delightful evening was capped by the audience joining the Cheese Lords in singing the much-loved carol Silent Night. This concert was broadcast on XM satellite radio on Christmas Day.

In February 2006, the Suspicious Cheese Lords were awarded the Washington Area Music Association’s 2005 “Wammie” in the general category of Best New Artist (Solo/Duo/Group). The Lords are the only classical music artists to ever receive this particular honor. The awards ceremony was held at the State Theater in Falls Church where the Lords performed Palestrina’s Sicut cervus and the chanson El Grillo (attributed to Josquin). The ensemble also received a “Wammie” nomination in the choral group category and their CD, Missa L’homme armé: Sacred Music of Ludwig Senfl, was nominated in the classical recording category.

Later that month, the Cheese Lords presented Divine Resonance: 500 Years of Papal Music in the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center’s rotunda. The concert offered compositions heard at the Vatican from Elzéar Genet in the 15th century to Giuseppe Liberto, the current director of the Sistine Chapel Choir. In addition to works by well-known composers like Palestrina, the Lords performed motets by Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni (1657-1743) and Lorenzo Perosi (1872-1956), and sections of Josef Rheinberger’s eight-part Cantus missae (dedicated to Pope Leo XIII). The concert was held in conjunction with the Cultural Center’s exhibit “Papi in Posa: 500 Years of Papal Portraiture”.

St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Washington was the site of the Cheese Lords’ Lenten music concert titled O Vos Omnes, which featured compositions of the same name by Pau Casals and Giuseppe Liberto. The program also included the lovely Ave, vere sanguis Domini by Francisco de Peñalosa (c.1470-1528) and two Cheese Lord original compositions: Gary Winans’ Recessit pastor noster and George Cervantes’s Tenebræ factæ sunt. The featured work was the five-voice Lamentatio Jeremiae by Alfonso Ferrabosco the Elder (1543-1588). This five-voice work was repeated twice during the following week for Tenebræ services held at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center chapel and St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church.

In late May, the Lords were pleased to make their debut at the Church of the Epiphany’s well-known Tuesday Concert Series in downtown Washington. The performance included the premier of another Cheese Lord original work, A Rose Beheld the Sun, a sonnet written and set to music by Gordon Geise. The Lords also performed James Erb’s arrangement for male voices of Shenandoah and William L. Dawson’s rousing arrangement of the spiritual Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit. Among Renaissance works featured were Nicholas Gombert’s lush eight-voice lament Lugebat David Absalon and Francesco Landini’s ballata L’alma mia piange.

The Suspicious Cheese Lords ended their 2005-2006 concert season with performances for two different festivals. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Rock Creek Parish held their weeklong music festival in mid-June. The Cheese Lords took one of the late evening performance slots and couldn’t resist calling their concert Early Music for Insomniacs. Less than a week later the Lords presented the same program for the third annual Washington Early Music Festival at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Capitol Hill. Renamed “Boot”-E-Licious: Music of Renaissance Italy, the concert repertoire included sacred works by Marc Antonio Ingegneri, de Silva, and Gesualdo. The Lords also featured works by Vittoria Aleotti and Maddalena Casulana, two of the first women to have their music published during the Renaissance. The program was rounded out by two familiar madrigals, L’innamorato (A lieta vita) by Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi and So ben mi ch’ha bon tempo by Orazio Vecchi.