Described as a “rock star of early music” by Western Michigan University professor Dr. Matthew Steel, Jordi Savall will perform a solo viola da gamba programon Saturday for Fontana’sfall/winter series.
To reach his level of mastery, Savall tells Cara Lieurance he spent seven to eight hours a day for ten years playing and studying the manuscripts of the virtuoso viola da gamba player Marin Marias. Although he is a contributor to the early music program at the Juilliard School, he has no plans to write a modern textbook for aspiring viola da gambists. The best instruction books, he says, were written 300 years ago.
Dr. Steel and WMU music student Kristin Benes preview Savall's performance with Cara Lieurance and talk about Jordi Savall’s contribution to the field of early music. Savall has recorded nearly one hundred albums of early music as a soloist, chamber player, or conductor of ensembles he has founded, such as Hesperion XXI and Les Concerts des Nations.
