2012-2013 Season

God and Man, Time and Space

Echoes of the Sistine Chapel
Palestrina, Allegri, Josquin, Ockeghem, Dufay

Friday, October 12, 2012 in Austin
Saturday, October 13, 2012 in Georgetown

Transcendent Renaissance polyphony composed for the most famous chapel in history. Ethereal a
cappella works by some of the most familiar and beloved Italian and Franco-Flemish masters performed
in the Popes’ very own Sistine Chapel. Music to match the Vatican’s noble architecture adorned by
Michelangelo’s monumental painting of the “Creation of Adam” on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Handel’s Messiah (complete)

with Mercury (Period Orchestra)

Friday and Saturday, December 21 & 22, 2012 at St. Louis Catholic Church Chapel

Ensemble VIII collaborates once again with Houston’s period orchestra Mercury in a revival of its inaugural
season triumph of Handel’s Messiah. Experience the complete oratorio, not in the romantic garb of
modern orchestras and large symphonic choruses, but rather in the vibrant and detailed clarity that
Handel would have expected with streamlined forces, expert execution, and the brilliant timbres of the
Baroque instruments he himself conducted.

The Passion of Seven

North German Masterworks for Holy Week
Bach, Buxtehude, Schütz

Thursday, February 28, 2013 at Lois Perkins Chapel, Southwestern University, Georgetown
Friday, March 1, 2013 at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, Austin

Seven words…seven verses…seven meditations. Three transcendent works that transport us to a world
of great devotion and profound spirituality. The passion music of Schütz, Buxtehude, and Bach compel
and inspire us today, as they did in their own time, to a deep encounter of the human journey through
suffering toward triumph.

Blessed Mother, Eternal Spirit

The Eton Choirbook
Early English Polyphony

Friday, May 10, 2013 at St. Louis Catholic Church Chapel, Austin

Rich, brilliant, rhythmic, sonorous…words that aptly describe the music contained in the Eton Choirbook,
compiled around 1500 at the English prep school Eton College. Representing the best English sacred music
of the late 1400s, the composers of this collection did not simply serve as the foundation upon which
later English masters like Tallis and Byrd composed great music; rather, their music stands on its own as
a supreme musical culmination of 15th century Pre-Reformation England. A rare opportunity to hear this
astonishing and extraordinary music, indeed!

2011-2012 Inaugural Season

Siglo de Oro—Spanish Polyphony of Morales and Victoria

Austin – Friday, October 21, 2011
Pre-concert lecture at 6:45 p.m. by Dr. Lorenzo Candelaria
Concert at 7:30 p.m.
St. Louis Catholic Church Chapel – 7601 Burnet Road

San Antonio – Saturday, October 22, 2011
Concert 7:30 p.m.
San Fernando Cathedral – 115 Main Plaza

Victoria Requiem á 6 (1605)
Morales Gaude et laetare, Ferrariensis civitas
Morales Andreas Christi famulus
Morales Lamentabatur Jacob
Morales Simile est regnum caelorum
Morales Circumdederunt me gemitus mortis
Morales Regina caeli

Handel’s Messiah (complete)

Friday, December 16, 2011 at 7:30 PM
Saturday, December 17, 2011 at 7:30 PM
St. Louis Catholic Church Chapel in Austin, TX - 7601 Burnet Road

Tenebrae—Shadows of France

Friday, March 2, 2012 in San Antonio at 7:30p
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

Saturday, March 3, 2012 in Austin at 7:30p
St. Louis Catholic Church Chapel

Couperin Leçons de Ténèbres
Charpentier Méditations pour le Carême
Charpentier Le reniement de St Pierre

The House of Tudor—English Polyphony of Tallis, Sheppard, and Byrd

Friday, May 11, 2012 in Austin at 7:30p
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

Saturday, May 12, 2012 in Dallas at 7:30p
Church of the Incarnation Episcopal

Tallis Lamentations of Jeremiah
Sheppard Media Vita
Byrd The Great Service