Love to My Liking

Berkeley Festival and Exhibition

French composer and poet Guillaume de Machaut was one of the leading minds of the Middle Ages. His Messe de Nostre Dame is one of the first multi-movement, large-scale notated compositions to exist in the Western canon and has been called the “genesis of modern music” (Los Angeles Times). This program features Machaut’s magnum opus as well as the secular songs of minstrels and bards from the Middle Ages to create an evening of artistry, revelry, and dance. The Festival continues its decades-long association with Chanticleer, one of SFEMS’ original fiscal affiliates! We are also excited to welcome back Alkemie, which wowed audiences during their 2022–23 SFEMS concert debut.

Love To My Liking

album release concert

LOVE TO MY LIKING is a very special album release concert, in which Alkemie performs 13th-century songs, dances, and motets, some of which have never before been recorded. Like the troubadours in the South, the trouvères of Northern France wrote some of the most captivating vocal music of the 13th century. Their songs of public and private adoration wove together allusions both sacred and secular—creating mystical and spicy meditations on love and longing, punctuated by repeating refrains that recur across songs and texts. 

Love To My Liking

album release concert

LOVE TO MY LIKING is a very special album release concert, in which Alkemie performs 13th-century songs, dances, and motets, some of which have never before been recorded. Like the troubadours in the South, the trouvères of Northern France wrote some of the most captivating vocal music of the 13th century. Their songs of public and private adoration wove together allusions both sacred and secular—creating mystical and spicy meditations on love and longing, punctuated by repeating refrains that recur across songs and texts. 

A Worthy Mirror

with guest artist Amanda Gookin of Forward Music Project

A WORTHY MIRROR represents a time-traveling dialogue with the 12th-century trobairitz–the feminine counterpart of the poet-composers known as troubadours. Together with Forward Music Project, we are commissioning eleven female and non-binary composers to respond to and converse with the 36 extant trobairitz texts (of which we only have music for one). This body of lyric poetry represents a large group of historically female and anonymous femme voices in the literary tradition. Witty, ironic, heartbreaking, and erotic—these texts present a mirror to reflect upon what feels foreign about the past and what feels familiar, what is the role of gender and self in relationships, and how do we make space for the multiplicities of identity, both in the 12th century and today.

A Worthy Mirror Roundtable

Moderated by poet and critic danilo machado

Join us on February 7th at 6pm for an online ROUNDTABLE discussion with the composers of A WORTHY MIRROR, a commissioning project from Alkemie that puts 12th-century poet-composers in conversation with their modern counterparts. Moderated by poet and critic danilo machado, this roundtable will explore how A WORTHY MIRROR translates lyric poetry into new compositions, forefronts female and anonymous femme voices in medieval canon, and reflects upon themes of gender, self, and relationships across time.

Presented by National Sawdust’s MOTIF, a digital-first platform of arts, innovation, and ideas presented by National Sawdust to engage the arts through a filter of human rights, access, participation, and equity.

This roundtable is being video recorded and will be publicly available afterwards to those who register.

Call Me Marie

with Chapter House

CALL ME MARIE is a collaboration with the Grammy-nominated duo Chapter House, based on the fables told by a 12th-century woman who pen-named herself “Marie de France.” Storyteller Sarah Walker performs tales of love, magic, and cautionary wisdom, punctuated by music from the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine as well as from Harley Ms. 978, a 13th-century English source of Marie's fables as well as the only extant version of the famous round "Sumer Is Icumen In."

This event also features a Free Master Class with Alkemie; more info is available through Old Dominion University.

A Fine Companion

album release concert

A FINE COMPANION is an album of newly composed settings of troubadour songs and texts, written in a dream-pop /shoegaze/ psychedelic rock style for an amplified combination of medieval and new instruments. The texts of this project were chosen by Charles Mueller (composer) and the ensemble, with a focus on troubadour lyrics that expand or refute the standard tropes of chivalrous love by choosing poems from a feminine perspective, and by delving into the metaphysical and spiritual subsets of the genre. The unbridled sensuality of the arrangements creates space for a raw experience that inspires a visceral reaction in the listener. Mueller has used pre-existing troubadour music as a melodic and modal prompt on a number of pieces, with direct quotations organically morphing as if in an inspired game of telephone.

Alkemie & Freelance Nun invite you to join them for a post-concert reception to celebrate the album release in the next-door restaurant space, The Turk's Inn. We recommend making your reservation for 8 or 8:30pm, with food and drink available until 11pm that evening. Make reservations via the link below to secure your table.

Pentiment Live

Alkemie joins with Shapeshifter Lab to present the first-ever live concert of music from the BAFTA-award-winning videogame PENTIMENT – a narrative RPG murder mystery set in 16th-century Bavaria. Alkemie composed, curated, and performed all of the music heard in this acclaimed game, directed by Josh Sawyer and released by Obsidian entertainment.