The featured image above is of a newly found manuscript, Menuetto and Trio, composed on 8 February 1808 by J. F. F. [Johann Friedrich Früauff (1762-1839)], who served as pastor of the Lititz Moravian Congregation, 1805-1815. This is one of the piano selections to be performed in the upcoming Collegium concert.
PRESS RELEASE
PDF download of Press Release (text only): LMCM Press Release_February 2019
PDF download of Poster (pictured below): LMCM Poster_March 31 2019
PDF download of printed program: LMCM program
Event: Concert by the Lititz Moravian Collegium Musicum (chamber orchestra)
Date/Time of Event: Sunday, March 31, 2019, 7 PM
Location: Lititz Moravian Congregation Fellowship Hall, Church Square, Lititz, PA
Tickets: $12 per ticket for adults, $6 for students, available only at the door beginning at 6 PM on the evening of the concert
For more information, contact:
Lititz Moravian Congregation Church Office,
717-626-8515; office@lititzmoravian.org
Dr. Jeffrey Gemmell, Music Director and Conductor
Lititz Moravian Congregation, Director of Music Ministries
717-342-4469; jeff@lititzmoravian.org
Lancaster County’s newest, yet oldest, chamber orchestra – the Lititz Moravian Collegium Musicum – will perform a concert of early music on Sunday, March 31, at 7 PM in Lititz. This professional ensemble of select instrumentalists from central Pennsylvania and surrounding states thrilled a full house in their inaugural concert in September and will once again provide a rare glimpse into a distinctive facet of musical life and culture in early Lititz. The success and high musical standards of the fall concert earned rave reviews and was hailed by LNP as one of the “Top Ten Musical Moments” in Lancaster County in 2018.
The early American Moravians who settled in Lititz in the mid-18th century are recognized today for the strong musical tradition they brought with them from Europe. Originally founded in the 1760s, the collegium provided an opportunity for a group of equally empowered individuals to share common goals and work within a framework of mutual trust and respect. Their Collegium Musicum provided an opportunity for accomplished musicians to rehearse and perform for practice, entertainment, and enlightenment, yet the Collegium also satisfied the settlement’s continual desire for leisurely music making. Current Lititz Archives Committee member Tom Wentzel adds, “It’s hard to believe and fascinating to imagine that this level of musical expertise and performance was taking place right here in Lititz, which at that time was remote and essentially an untamed wilderness.” The ensemble was the core of what would become the Lititz Philharmonic Society and the Lititz Band in the mid-19th century.
The all-new Lititz Moravian Collegium Musicum was established to perform live concerts of newly edited repertoire from the church’s manuscript collection dating from the mid-18th and early 19th-centuries. According to music director and conductor, Dr. Jeffrey Gemmell, “our musical time machine is busy preparing for its second launch to explore our distinctive manuscript collection and continue to discover the depth and variety of such unique musical worlds!”
The second concert of the new Collegium will include works selected from the Lititz Collegium Musicum Collection, stored at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, PA. Genres and styles found in the collection vary greatly, which is reflected in the repertoire chosen for the upcoming concert. Larger works for the full orchestra includes two opera overtures: one from La Clochette by Louis Hérold composed in 1817, and another from The Marriage of Figaro composed by W. A. Mozart in 1786. Pieces for wind instruments then in vogue called Parthien or Harmoniemusik, written for five to eight instruments (usually clarinets, bassoons, and horns), will be heard in a Collection of Military Pieces by Luigi Boccherini, Peter Wolle and Louis Viguerie, and Parthia No. 1 by Carl Stamitz. Chamber music for a trio of strings and pairs of winds and reeds, composed by Mozart, Giuseppe Demachi, and Johan Grenser, will lend variety to the program. Piano pieces composed in early 19th-century Lititz by former pastors Johannes Herbst and Johann Früauff will be heard, and selections will also be performed on the historic 1787 David Tannenberg organ. Ample opportunities for the audience to perform will be featured in the singing of early Moravian hymns accompanied by organ and orchestra.
Rev. Nola Reed Knouse, Ph.D., Director of the Moravian Music Foundation in Winston-Salem, NC, will deliver the Museum and Archives Moment with a presentation entitled, “Moravians Play! Using Instruments in the Moravian Music Heritage.” A playing demonstration of historic flutes from the Lititz Museum Collection will be included. Knouse believes that “one measure of a tradition’s vitality is the new manifestations it generates. This upcoming event shows the breadth and depth of Lititz’s musical heritage, which has never faltered through the centuries but continues in an unbroken line of excellence and joy.”
Tickets are $12 (cash, please) and will be sold at the door beginning at 6 PM on the day of the concert. The Lititz Moravian Mission Gift Shop will be open before and after the concert, and the Archives and Museum will welcome visitors after the concert. Donations/memorial contributions for the concert are welcome and should be sent to the Lititz Moravian Church Office (checks may be made payable to “LMCM” and identified as such on the front of the envelope). For more information, refer to the church’s website at www.lititzmoravian.org or Facebook Lititz Moravian Museum.
Jeffrey Gemmell's Repository of Artful Things! 