San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble

Church of St. John the Baptist;

Sat 16

What would Jesus groove to?  That, in part, is the question asked by this program of ancient Jewish, Christian, Greek, African and American sacred music by the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble (SAVAE).  Founded in 1989 by Covita Moroney, the enterprising, seven-member early-music group excels in the familiar songs and motets of the European Renaissance and Middle Ages, and also goes digging for forgotten musical treasures from worlds both old and new. 

            Their first CDs, Native Angels and two recordings of works inspired by the Virgin of Guadalupe, focused on music by Nahua and Aztec composers, as well as by Mexican and Spanish musicians trained in the European tradition.  Saturday’s concert includes a number of pieces from the first century of the common era – for believers, Jesus’s lifetime, when Jerusalem’s Second Temple still stood – along with religious works from Africa and the Americas.

            While the musical reconstructions involve considerable speculation, scholars (including Abraham Zvi Idelson) have long established distinctive progressions and motifs in Jewish music from far-flung locations, suggesting a shared, pre-Diaspora source.  SAVAE will play modern reproductions of ancient instruments and sing works based on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Second Temple rites and Aramaic prayers.  With music from elsewhere in the ancient Mediterranean, Africa and the new world, the program promises to offer a varied, thought-provoking cross-section of humanity’s musical encounters with the divine. 

-- Marion Lignana Rosenberg