My girlfriends in Schola Magdalena are off to lovely Prince Edward County today to sing at a medieval reënactment at the Rose Museum.
In celebration of our summer tours, we have released a “single” on CDBaby, soon to be also available through iTunes.
Schola Magdalena is a 6-voice women’s ensemble, singing together for 8 years now,
often touring our concerts around Ontario and Quebec,
and doing workshops with choirs who want to sing chant, Hildegard, and medieval polyphony.
We have two recordings, but after our last series of concerts,
at St. George’s Cathedral in Kingston, St. Anne’s Church in Toronto,
and our own home venue, St. Mary Magdalene’s
we were asked several times about this particular piece – Musica est Dei donum optimi –
a very simple canon by the renaissance composer Lassus, that we perform in a peculiar, modern way,
usually standing in a circle within, or behind our audience.
The resulting canon gets more and more close, so the original is almost lost.
Obvious great music for a 6 minute yoga warmup!
Here’s the link if you’d like to download it.
Musica est Dei donum optimi
The Latin words mean “Music is God’s greatest gift.”
Hope you enjoy it!