STAGE TWO: Tactus Vocal Ensemble

MATINEE PERFORMANCE

Sunday, May 10, 2009 at 3 pm

Guelph Youth Music Centre, Recital Hall

75 Cardigan Street, Guelph, ON

TACTUS... Shakespeare's Music: Rhyme & Reason

What is it with Shakespeare? For Tactus, in simplest terms, he’s just hard to get out of your blood. The Bard has inspired so much in the broad realm of art, that we simply can’t help ourselves with this “concert” format. In the past we’ve explored a musical day in the life of Will, and now we muse over Shakespeare’s rhyme and reason, an admittedly generous theme.

We’ve bastardized the Bard’s tongue, as he used the expression “neither rhyme nor reason” on two occasions. The line originates in his Comedy of Errors (1590) with Dromio of Syracuse:

Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?

Shakespeare must have been fond of the line, for he used it again (which was not common for the genius of so many words) in As You Like It (1600) with Rosalind asking Orlando:

But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?
Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.

We believe that rhyme and reason can express much, whether in a little catch like “Ah, Robin” from Twelfth Night, or a fairy-inspired violin flourish leading into the strange world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or the cunning reasoning evident in Kate’s power past-taming (The Taming of the Shrew).

Tactus loves working with these four consummate artists: Jane and John Watson, so dedicated to the craft of acting and always devoted to the holy grail of dramatic work—Shakespeare; Terry McKenna, the living, breathing Shakespearean lutenist of our time and clime (the man lives in Stratford!); and Shannon Purves-Smith, gifted Renaissance musician on recorders and viols, and perhaps if we enchant her properly, played at the same time… from fairy to supernatural queen, music for a midspring afternoon's dream, making us forget that there is any time past the Bard's… ah, the rhyme and reason of it all!

Guelph Musicfest is pleased to open its third season with this crack a cappella vocal ensemble!

Download a concert poster | Download a Series brochure

LINKS
Tactus Vocal Ensemble

stage two | may 10 – tactus | may 17 - slide by slide