Divers Toyes: A Program of Music for Voice and Guitar

Boston area soprano Rebecca Grimes and guitarist Dave McLellan perform a diverse selection of 'toyes' for voice and guitar.

MCC joins New England Conservatory, Longwood Symphony Orchestra, and Symphony Pro Musica as a part of the Symphonic Relief for Haiti to raise $250,000 to aid Partners in Health Haitian relief efforts.

100% of ticket sales will go to Partners in Health. Audience may also donate to Partners in Health separately while at the concert.

The program includes lute songs of English Renaissance lutenist composer John Dowload, the haunting Bachianas Brasileiras #5 of Heitor Villa-Lobos, Seven Popular Spanish Songs of Manuel de Falla, Leo Brouwer’s Etudes Simples for solo guitar, Letters from Composers – songs set to the texts of real letters written by famous composers to family, employers, and friends by Dominick Argento, and the brilliant setting of the Edward Lear poem "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Hungarian Matyas Seiber, including violinist Sam Stapleton.

In Fine Knacks for Ladies, by English lute song composer John Dowland, a street vendor sings about the trinkets he sells to ladies looking for a suitor. But the seller warns – it’s not about the trinkets, it’s about the heart of the buyer. It’s what inside that counts. From the third verse:

“Within this pack pins points laces and gloves
And divers toyes fitting a country fair
But in my heart where duty server and loves,
Turtles and twins, Count’s brood, a heav’nly pair
Happy the heart that thinks of no removes.”