Prima Vox and dreams come true

Lately, many people have been wondering how the Celtic music I am generally known for performing informs my performances of medieval music and chant with Prima Vox.

My secret was out when we formed Prima Vox — I've actually been an early music geek since high school. While my friends were listening to Van Halen and U2, I was secretly wearing out my recordings of madrigals, recorder consorts, Renaissance Christmas music and medieval masses.

When the harp came into my life, I happily put away the classical music I'd grown up playing on the piano. With the harp came the sound, the aesthetic, the mood, the music I'd been listening to and loving for years. Estampies, cantigas, ballads, carols were the first music I learned to play on the harp.

So early music, not Celtic music, has informed all of my musical pursuits for a long time. Celtic music included, because it is eerily similar to the early music I love — they have the same modal scales and haunting melodies that "get" me every time I hear and play them.

When I was in college, my favorite classes were Early English Literature, where I learned to pronounce Middle English (thanks, Dr. Harry Solo), and Music History, which opened a world of resources for finding the music I loved. I remember the day in the music library when I discovered a recording of Middle English lyrics set to music. I raced back to my Norton Anthology of English Literature Volume 1 and found those lyrics. I was in Heaven. I made photocopies of those pages of lyrics, memorized them and kept them with my music, hoping I would perform them myself...someday, somewhere.

For Prima Vox's Fire & Ice concert,
I've pulled out those old, yellowed photocopies
and brushed up on my arrangement of "Gabriel Fram Hevene King."

Finally, my early dream has come true. December 19th, 2009, will be that someday. The somewhere will be Church of the Holy Communion in St. Peter. Thank you, Prima Vox.