This concert took place on Tuesday 1st February 2005, 7.30pm
at the Wigmore Hall, Wigmore Street, London W1
Baroque Music from Bolivia (the story)
In the last five years, more than 11,000 sheets of music have been discovered in the archives of several missions in the Bolivian amazon. In this concert, Florilegium present a selection of vocal and instrumental music by Domenico Zipoli, who travelled from Europe to the New World, and by anonymous native composers living in the missionary communities of Chiquitos and Moxos.
Florilegium are now established as one of Britain’s leading period instrument ensembles. In collaboration with their record company, Channel Classics, and the Prince Claus Foundation in Holland, Florilegium embarked on a project to record some of this music in the church where it was discovered deep in the Bolivian jungle. The Mission in Concepcion was built in 1707.
The four vocal soloists on this recording are all Bolivian, and live and work there. Following nationwide vocal auditions, four singers were selected to join Florilegium for this recording project, and after months of specialist training recorded this disc in April 2004. The concert marks the launch of the CD and the Bolivian soloists’ European debuts.