In early 2020 the entire world underwent a major transformation. The planet was consumed by a pandemic that altered life as we knew it. The arts sector was impacted more than most, leaving the idea of live events as a potentially serious health hazard. The very thought if it seems contradictory. None of us know how long the pandemic will last, although we suspect it could be quite some time. Now, after nearly ten unprecedented months, as a community, we are finding our rhythm. ludwig van TORONTO's list of Canada's most innovative arts leaders and groups who made the pivot against the odds includes; Ensemble Caprice for their outdoor mini-concerts in Montréal. 4,900: that is the number of door to door mini-concerts that Ensemble Caprice and the musicians they gathered gave between June and September all over Montréal. Aiming to fight loneliness and mental health suffering, while providing work for musicians, the 10-minute performances reached 36,000 people sitting on their balconies and doorways. They also collected $510,000 in donations, of which 91% went to musicians.  PHOTO: Gilles Brissette SEE THE FULL ludwig van TORONTO PAGE

During the first weeks of the quarantine, a small group of people wanted to ease the solitude of one of their friends, who was celebrating her birthday. "They sang 'Happy Birthday' through their car windows. The police quickly showed up afterwards to slap a fine on the birthday girl. That's what gave us the idea for Mini-Concerts Santé," said Matthias Maute, conductor of the Caprice Ensemble. The Montreal orchestra created Mini-Concerts Santé, a series of free classical music concerts, in partnership with Mécénat Musica. Maute and his colleagues felt people's mental health was suffering during the pandemic, particularly due to isolation.  The Caprice Ensemble artists quickly decided to put their instruments in their cases and go out in pairs into the streets of Montreal and offer 10-minute private mini-concerts. READ THE FULL CBC ARTICLE

The San Francisco Early Music Society (SFEMS) is pleased to welcome back Montreal-based Ensemble Caprice, celebrating its 30th anniversary this season. Ensemble Caprice will perform a program inspired by love stories from five countries with works by Bach, Purcell, Falconieri, Schmelzer, Vivaldi and more. Concerts of Ensemble Caprice will take place at 8 p.m. Friday, April 12 at First Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto; at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 13 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley; and at 4 p.m. Sunday, April 14 at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco. READ THE FULL BroadwayWorld ARTICLE p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d; min-height: 14.0px}

Each week, we highlight a new release from the classical world - see which albums from 2016 each member of the WCRB: Boston team loved the most! Without a doubt my favorite album of 2016 is Ensemble Caprice's Chaconne: Voices of Eternity, our first CD of the Week of 2016. I loved this album firstly because of the vivid, electric vibrancy with which Ensemble Caprice plays, and which they bring to every note on the album. Secondly, much like a concept album, in Voices of Eternity Ensemble Caprice focuses on a single idea: the illusion of eternity, weaving newly composed works by Matthias Maute (founder and Music Director of Ensemble Caprice) that look to the future, between beautiful chaconnes and folias from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries that revel in the past. All in all, Voices of Eternity is an immensely enjoyable listen from track 1 through track 21, and I hope you enjoy revisiting it as much as I have.

Salsa is the Spanish word for sauce. Ensemble Caprice - Salsa Baroque can be described as baroque music of Latin America. A fusion of harmonies and rhythms of Europe and Africa blended with Amerindian nuances and styles that dates back to the 16th century and gave rise to a complex and fascinating multitude of musical forms resulting in a great variety of instrumentations, structures, and rhythmic and melodic phrasing. designating at the same time a dance as well as a family of musical genres in Latin-American music. Hear highlights on tonight's KUAF: Fayetteville AR - 'Of Note' episode from 8 to 10 p.m. CT or stream. We'll also hear Bartok by heart and a suite from Handel's Water Music and much more. LISTEN TO THE KUAF SEGMENT

Each week KDFC: San Francisco members can download a free mp3 from some of the biggest releases in the world of Classical music. On Chaconne - Voices of Eternity, Ensemble Caprice gathers some of the most beautiful chaconnes and passacaglias from the hundreds of composed during the Baroque period. In the chaconne and the passacaglia, repetition of the same harmonic formula allowed for the representation of a notion of time that transcended that of day-to-day experience – in other words, eternity! As a geometrically variable group, Ensemble Caprice here draws on the talents of seven musicians playing period instruments, who are joined by organist Jean-Willy Kunz, sopranos Dawn Bailey and Jana Miller and mezzo-soprano Maude Brunet. In addition to the instrumental pieces judiciously selected from a vast repertoire, Matthias Maute (conductor and composer) has rearranged certain others for two recorders and bass, including Johann Sebastian Bach's famous Chaconne BWV 1004 for solo violin and Monteverdi's Chi vol che m'innamori (with its closing "Today we are light, and then tomorrow, shadow"). The album also contains hauntingly beautiful 16th-century Czech folksongs. Everything, in a program of heightened feeling, takes us to this indescribable notion of eternity.    Ensemble Caprice - Chaconne is the KDFC: Download of the Week

Under the direction of Matthias Maute, Ensemble Caprice explores a rich collection of chaconnes, passacaglias, and Folias from the Renaissance and baroque eras. Through works by Falconieri, Monteverdi, Bach, Maute, and more, the ensemble illustrates the limitless possibilities of these three compositional forms, all of which arise from variation, improvisation, and evolution of underlying musical lines. Ensemble Caprice - Chaconne is the WCRB: Boston CD of the Week

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the chaconne was generally indistinguishable from the passacaglia, the two musical forms being so similar in nature. In both, the repetition of a single harmonic motif evoked a sense of time stretching far beyond the limits of our physical world. This recording collects some of the most beautiful examples from the literally hundreds of such pieces composed during the Baroque period. Ensemble Caprice - Chaconne / WFMT: Chicago - New Release of the Week

"Salsa Baroque: Music of Latin America and Spain." It takes the imagery of imagination to translate two hours of middle-Baroque music into the act of sailing the Atlantic, journeying all the way to Argentina and doing so with the panache of Ensemble Caprice. Led by recorder players Matthias Maute and Sophie Larivière, the Caprice musicians made a bit of a production of their Sunday afternoon concert. Maute had appeared with two Caprice players the Friday prior to open the Indy Early Music series. David Jacques started the journey by himself onstage with a guitar solo, when all of a sudden the remaining five musicians added their own timbres as they sauntered single file down the Basile Theater steps from in back of us to join Jacques. The three remaining artists are Baroque cellist Susie Napper, percussionist Ziya Tabassian and guest soprano Estelí Gomez. Gomez has a lovely voice, often singing a pure, burnished white (i.e. no vibrato) and quite apropos for the musical era and styles to which they exposed us. An often featured composer was Santiago de Murcia (1673 - 1739), who put the stamp on the period, one which was also defined by a number of anonymous sources. One such source emerged as a "Chacona" (which is Spanish for "Ciaconna" or "Chaconne") -- intricate writing decorating a short, repeated line, from a composer unknown. READ THE FULL NUVO REVIEW

The Ensemble Caprice will be performing in the Energy City on Monday, April 27 through the Estevan Arts Council's Stars for Saskatchewan series. The show will happen at Trinity Lutheran Church at 7:30 p.m. Ensemble Caprice, under the artistic direction of Matthias Maute and Sophie Lariviere, is known for its interpretations of baroque music, and has received national and international acclaim for more than 20 years. The group performs regularly in Europe and in the U.S., and has also toured in Israel and Taiwan. In Canada, they are invited regularly to the most prestigious festivals and concert series across the country. Their CD, Gloria! Vivaldi's Angels, won a Juno Award in 2009.  READ THE FULL Estevan Lifestyles ARTICLE.

Sweet misery. That's the only way to describe this remarkable new album by Montreal's Ensemble Caprice and its leader, Matthias Maute. Most period-instrument ensembles stick to stuff written before the 19th century, but Maute and Co. reach all the way to the present day, adding yet one more layer of intriguing listening to this multi-layered, bittersweet confection. Rather than programming by period or composer or even genre, Maute has mixed instrumental with vocal in a 12-track album that surveys musical expressions of melancholy and deep contemplation, many of them on a spiritual plane. He has also arranged material for different instruments. We get Eric Satie's famous Gymnopédie No. 1 and Frédéric Chopin's Op. 28 No. 4 Prélude rendered for period chamber orchestra, with magical results. Using his own musical wits, Maute has fixed one of the great musical forgeries of the last century, Tomaso Albinoni's Adagio. Hearing Charles Ives' music played here makes it so much more friendly and accessible. This is not only one of the most beautiful classical albums of the year, it is also one of the most inventive.

SEE THE Toronto Star PAGE

Ensemble Caprice will play at Northeastern Illinois University TONIGHT!! Nov. 15th
The performance will start at 7:30pm in Chicago, Illinois. Ensemble Caprice presents Salsa Baroque, a program with a fascinating blend of sixteenth and seventeenth century European polyphony and Latin American traditional music. Gems from this spectacular musical era will be performed on flutes, recorders, baroque guitar, cello and percussion instruments.

Under the artistic direction of Matthias Maute, Ensemble Caprice is renowned for its innovative interpretations of baroque music. Performed entirely on period instruments, their new Analekta disc: Adagio is a powerful, emotional recording and is this week's: KDFC: Download Of The Week. Dowload Satie's Gymnopedie #1 from the new Caprice CD: 'Adagio,' on Alalekta.

Sweet misery. That's the only way to describe this remarkable new album by Montreal's Ensemble Caprice and its leader, Matthias Maute. Most period-instrument ensembles stick to stuff written before the 19th century, but Maute and Co. reach all the way to the present day, adding yet one more layer of intriguing listening to this multi-layered, bittersweet confection. READ THE FULL Toronto Star Review of Adagio..

Ensemble Caprice will perform at the Early Music Voices Concert Series TONIGHT!! Oct. 19th. The performance will start at 8pm in Calgary, Alberta. Led by recorder & traverso players, Matthias Maute & Sophie Lariviere, Ensemble Caprice is renowned for its innovative interpretations of baroque music. Here they present a mostly Vivaldi program with soprano, Dawn Bailey, as well as music by other baroque greats: Handel, Sammartini, Caldara & J.S. Bach.

Under the artistic direction of Matthias Maute and Sophie Lariviere, Ensemble Caprice is renowned for its innovative interpretations of baroque music. For 20 years Ensemble Caprice has received national and international acclaim for their performances of early music. Ensemble Caprice will perform TONIGHT!! September 28th@The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Bourgie Concert Hall TONIGHT!! 

One can describe baroque music of Latin America as a fusion of harmonies and rhythms of Europe and Africa blended with Amerindian nuances and styles. This unique fusion dates back to the 16th century and gave rise to a complex and fascinating multitude of musical forms resulting in a great variety of instrumentations, structures, and rhythmic and melodic phrasing.

Salsa is the Spanish word for sauce, designating at the same time a dance as well as a family of musical genres in Latin-American music. It is this latter meaning and its ancient roots that, together with a bit of humour, we have taken to give the title Salsa baroque to our project. Despite the human and political tragedies surrounding the colonization of the South-American continent, the multipolar musical culture that resulted is distinguished by its fiery spirit and passion: here is music with a unique character that enriches the repertoire of the 17th century with refreshing novelties.

Gaspar Fernandes (c. 1570-1629) was Portuguese by birth, but emigrated to Mexico, where he became a chapel musician at the cathedrals of Guatemala and Puebla. His villancicos (a popular song form of Spanish origin) often have texts written in a mixture of an Amerindian language with Spanish or the local dialect. The touching lullaby Xicochi conetzintle utilizes the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs. The collection of roughly 250 works from the pen of Gaspar Fernandes forms the largest source of 17th-century secular music from the New World.

Juan de Araujo (1648-1712), born in Spain, also spent his life as a musician in Peru and Bolivia where he was appointed Choirmaster of the cathedral in La Plata. His Los coflades de la estleya (with the subtitle Black Song for the Birth of Our Lord) and the Convidando está la noche by Juan García de Zespedes (1619-1678) distinguish themselves through the use of African rhythms juxtaposed with sections of European counterpoint. It is perhaps through these two short masterpieces of mixed colouring that the peculiar ambiance that reigned in Latin America in the 17th century is best conveyed.

The Christmas music, Tarara, of Antonio de Salazar (c. 1650-1715), as well as the Pastorale of Domenico Zipoli (1668-1726) display the originality of composers in the New World who were able to meld their European background with-from a European point of view-the exotic sonorities of their Latin-American environment. The audacious final melody of the Pastorale gives us an inkling of the creative desires of an immigrant musician.

Spanish music is represented by instrumental works from the vast collection of Antonio Martín y Coll (1671-1734) that encompasses some hundred pieces of music in its 4 volumes called Flores de musica. The Chacona and the Xacara are enriched with complex rhythms that approach those of another contemporary Spanish composer who had travelled in Latin America, Santiago de Murcia (1673-1739), whose El Amor, Baylad Caracoles, and La Jotta draw on a rich repertoire of dance rhythms.

It is evident that geographic separation did not impede the relatively rapid transfer of musical styles and genres, despite the problems imposed by the very limited means of international and intercontinental travel. The Canción de clarin con eco a discrecion, also taken from the Flores de musica collection, as well as the Temblante estilo italiano clearly show the Italian influence on the Iberian Peninsula. Conversely the air-de-cour Yo soy la locura by Henry de Bailly (c. 1585-1637) has a Spanish text in spite of the French nationality of the composer.

The rite Hanacpachap cussicuinin was sung and performed during religious processions in church. Published in 1631 in Peru, this the very first polyphony published in the Americas. It is a very touching piece of music, born of different cultural worlds united by the beauty of music.

The Ensemble Caprice members are putting on their gypsy attire! Following a wild journey along with Vivaldi on the bohemian road, they do it again with Telemann! High-octane performances of the composer's oeuvre are intertwined with sparkling Matthias Maute's arrangements of gipsy pieces. All the colors and opulence of a unique cultural heritage offered to you. From Telemann's own writings, after listening to gypsy musicians and their music: One can hardly believe what wonderful imaginative ideas these pipers and fiddlers have as they improvise. In only a week, a composer could be inspired for an entire lifetime. I have written several major concertos in this style. Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) was only 24 years old when he was appointed to his first position at court. Mostly self-taught, he was familiar with all orchestral instruments and could play the harpsichord, recorder, transverse flute, chalumeau (the baroque predecessor of the clarinet), brass instruments like the trombone, and even the calcedon (a 5-stringed lute) in addition to the mandatory string instruments. His versatility evidently outshone the talent of even the most multi-instrumentally trained baroque musicians. By 1705, the young Telemann's reputation as an innovative composer and flexible instrumentalist had advanced his career so quickly that he was appointed Kapellmeister to Reichsgraf Erdmann II at his castle in Sorau (in today's Poland). However, despite the auspicious beginning to his career, even a privileged courtly musician like Telemann was at the mercy of the political troubles of his times. In February 1706, the Great Northern War waged by Augustus II the Strong caused the entire court to flee from Sorau and Telemann was unable to return for four months. However, the industrious Telemann had visited Kracow and Pless during this time and familiarized himself with Polish and Moravian music, which he described as having "barbaric beauty". As mentioned in his autobiographies, Telemann's encounters with Eastern European gypsy music influenced his own compositions. The young composer must have been enthralled by the wonderful inventiveness of this music, as typified in this recording with the last movements of the Caprice Symphony and the Concerto in e minor for recorder and flute. In addition to melodic construction in the pastoral genre that was considered aesthetically pleasing at the time, the fashionable Polonaise also contributed to making Eastern European folk and gypsy music court-worthy. The door to this eastern-oriented cultural expansion had only recently been opened as a consequence of the appointment of Augustus II, Prince Elector of Saxony, to the Polish Kingship in 1697 and Telemann did not lose the opportunity of embracing it. At this point, Telemann's infallible sense of sound colour became invaluable. The unusual instrumentation of the Caprice Symphony, with its constellation of solo instruments is unique in the history of western music and would have given this witty composer great pleasure. The piccolo transverse flute, which is strengthened by a regular flute doubling it an octave lower, is combined with an oboe and a chalumeau, as well as two solo double basses, all accompanied by a string ensemble. The gypsy melodies and dances presented here are from the spectacular Uhrovska Collection of 1730, a volume containing 350 melodies that were in all probability assembled by a scholar wishing to produce a comprehensive compendium of the gypsy people's music. This pancultural treasure of Eastern European music reveals Hungarian, Polish, Slovakian and geographically-indefinable European influences. True to the oral tradition of gypsy music, only the melodies themselves are documented, since it was assumed that any accompaniment would be improvised. In keeping with this practice, we have made our own arrangements, leaving room for improvisation while fully exploiting their harmonic and rhythmic richness. The untamed virtuosic strength and expressive melancholy of this music has lingered with us for some time, and yet we continue to discover fresh nuances in this lavishly developed gypsy art. In this recording, we are musically re-enacting the encounters of Telemann with the gypsies of Eastern Europe. The direct dialogue between individual movements from the Trio Sonata in d minor and the Paris Quartet with melodies from the Uhrovska Collection depicts a conversation in which commonalities as well as differences are made unabashedly explicit. Telemann's compositional methods in his "Polish" works follow his own self-imposed rules, as is illustrated by the last movement of the famous Concerto in E minor for recorder and flute, in which some of the Polish tutti melodies are interrupted by quintessentially baroque and virtuosic solo passages. The contrast and dazzlingly fast shifts from one culture to another result in a rich play of colour that captures our attention in the same way that it intrigued listeners during the eighteenth century. The "barbaric beauty" that Telemann discovered in Polish and Moravian music is also imbued with eternal youth.

Hardly a month goes by without a new rendition of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos arriving in the virtual space where record stores used to be. A version by the Montreal-based group Ensemble Caprice, on the Analekta label . . .