Dear Friends,

Thank you for your interest in Chalice Consort! If you believe in resurrecting forgotten music and advancing the knowledge and experiences of all students, scholars, performers and listeners of early music, please join our friends listed above and support our cause.

You can either donate online at Community Initiatives' website or write a check in any amount to Chalice Consort, and mail it to c/o Community Initiatives, 354 Pine Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA, 94104.

I have faith that there are at least 220 early music scholars, listeners, singers and supporters in this world who will donate $20 or more toward our cause to help us meet our fundraising goal of $5000 by April 1, 2010. Because we run our organization lean and mean with only volunteers working behind the scenes, 100% of your donation will be put to work.

I founded Chalice Consort with six other founding members in 2008 with a unique mission: Chalice Consort is a vocal ensemble; a collaborator with global early music scholars and musicians; and a leading catalyst for discovering, transcribing, and making accessible undiscovered or rarely performed Renaissance- and Baroque-era choral pieces. Chalice Consort's goal is to advance the knowledge and expand the experiences of all students, scholars, performers, and listeners of early music in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

My vision of our upcoming Early Music Mining Conference is coming to fruition and changing the landscape of Early Music, particularly in choral music as we know it today.

Our first ever Early Music Mining Conference (EMMC) has drawn the participation of 3 luminary early music choral directors from the UK in addition to our local luminary and current guest director of Chalice Consort, Davitt Moroney. This A-team of British directors is very fitting as our focal piece at the conference is by an English composer, Thomas Ashwell (c. 1478 – after 1513 (possibly 1527?)), and the piece is the lovely Missa Ave Maria composed prior to and miraculously survived the Dissolution of the Monestaries led by Henry VIII. It is one of the most beautiful masses I’ve ever sung! You can read about my initial reaction to this lovely piece when I woke up to it one Sunday morning and the events that occurred as a result by clicking here.

Last fall, we called upon ~1000 early music scholars that we could find from all over the world to submit newly transcribed and unpublished music scores that complement Ashwell’s piece, and we received 7 such submission from the US and Europe. We are now in the process of selecting up to 5 pieces to present at the EMMC this April 10, 2010 from 9am to 6:30pm at St. Mark’s Lutheran in San Francisco: http://www.chaliceconsort.org/emmc.html.

I invite you to put the EMMC in your calendar now and register today! This conference is sponsored by Early Music America, Eventbrite, and St. Mark's Lutheran SF. If you are interested in sponsoring, you are welcome to contact me directly.

Please email me with any questions. Chalice Consort appreciates your support!

Sincerely,

Rebekah Wu
Visionary, Founding Member
(letter posted- 1/28/10)

Chalice Consort is a project of Community Initiatives.

© Chalice Consort 2008