Published: 20260308
Event date: 2026y.March0318 d.18:00 - 19:15 All events
The Great Renaissance Hall
Relevant until 2026-03-18
Perrine Devillers (soprano)
Ariel Abramovich (vihuela de mano)
In sixteenth-century Spain, the vihuela was one of the principal instruments used for the domestic performance of highly cultivated art music. The workshops of violeros in Spanish cities produced thousands of instruments that were accessibly priced and bought eagerly by those who aspired to fill their homes with music of the kind that was traditionally the domain of the nobility and similar classes.
The invention of music printing in the first years of the century facilitated access to repertories that were formerly outside the reach of the urban bourgeoisie and professional classes. Through the printed page, vocal polyphony-normally performed in church or court contexts-entered their homes alongside the instrumental music of court vihuelists such as Luis Milán, Luis de Narváez and Miguel de Fuenllana.
The proliferation of such music meant also that the new bourgeois musicians, having assimilated the style of the music now available to them, also began to become creators, participants and contributors to the musical tradition of their time.
Esteban Daza was a musician of this kind, a vihuelist who today would be called an amateur but who in reality was a fine composer and musician, comparable with many of his professional peers. Esteban Daza was born in late 1537 or early 1538, the eldest son of Tomás and Juana Daza. Esteban's musical training is unknown, but the evidence drawn from his music points to a principally self-taught musician who learnt by studying the counterpoint of vocal works, assimilating ideas from the books of other vihuelists, and through use of some of the available theoretical manuals.
Esteban was probably around thirty-eight when “El Parnasso” was published in Valladolid in 1576. Prefaced by an introduction that explains the mechanics of tablature notation-derived closely from that of Narváez- “El Parnasso” is divided into three libros, each devoted to a separate genre: the libro primero contains Daza's twenty-two original fantasias, the libro segundo provides intabulations of thirteen motets, and the libro tercero is an anthology of more than twenty Spanish secular songs, with a pair of French chansons added as a colophon.
The present programme presents all but a few of the intabulated secular vocal works of the third book, and a selection of the original fantasias from the libro primero.
Dr. John Griffiths
Concert is organized in partnership with Embassy of Spain in Lithuania.
Entrance is free of charge, but due to the limited number of seats, we kindly ask you to register in advance.
The concert will take place in the Great Renaissance Hall of the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. Latecomers will not be admitted.
Without intermission.
Families are welcome to attend the concert with children of school age and older. Our youngest visitors, together with their families, are invited to take part in the educational activities at the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania.
The event will be photographed.
Perrine Devillers
After studying clarinet and education sciences, Perrine Devillers specialised in early music at the Schola Cantorum in Basel (Switzerland), where she obtained a master's degree in Renaissance-Romantic performance. She performs regularly with the ensembles Pygmalion (R. Pichon), Ensemble Correspondances (S. Daucé), Vox Luminis (L. Meunier), Le Poème Harmonique (V. Dumestre) and Profeti della Quinta (E. Rotem).
With a particular affinity for the Renaissance and early 17th century, she is regularly invited to European early music festivals (Seville, Madrid, Regensburg, Antwerp, Utrecht, Krakow, Saintes, etc.). Since 2018, she has been collaborating with lutenist Ariel Abramovich, focusing on Italian, Spanish and French Renaissance madrigals; with Elam Rotem on harpsichord and, more recently, with Matthieu Boutineau on organ, exploring the virtuoso monodies of early 17th-century Italy; and with Arnaud de Pasquale since 2020, rediscovering the repertoire of Sicilian Baroque organs.
Since 2020, with the female vocal quartet Saman, they have been combining popular music and original compositions for concerts reminiscent of narrative evenings.
Her discography has been critically acclaimed. In 2024, Cavalieri's Lamentationes Hieremiae Prophetae with Profeti della Quinta (Pan Classics) received a Diapason d'Or, confirming the Diapason Découverte received in 2017 for her unpublished recording of Carlo G's manuscript (Glossa).
Monteverdi's Vespro della Madonna with Le Poème Harmonique and Robert de Visée: Suites à la Mémoire d'un Poète - Château Versailles Spectacles - with Thibaut Roussel on the theorbo also received Diapason D'or awards in November 2024.
This season, she joins Le Poème Harmonique for three programmes: Monteverdi's Vespers, Bach's Magnificat and Dido and Aeneas (Belinda). She also continues her collaboration with the Ensemble Pygmalion (Welt Gute Nacht) and the Ensemble Correspondances (Maîtres de Notre-Dame, Quarantore à Rome, Secret des dames de Ferrare and Le Sacre de Louis XIV). In addition, she has been invited by the Berner Bach Chor (Switzerland) to sing Charpentier's Te Deum and Rameau's In Convertendo.
At the same time, she is touring France, the Netherlands and Canada with her recital programmes alongside Ariel Abramovich, Elam Rotem, Matthieu Boutineau and Arnaud de Pasquale.
Ariel Abramovich
Born in Buenos Aires, the Argentinian lutenist and vihuelist decided in his adolescence to devote himself exclusively to Renaissance music, becoming one of the leading performers in the vihuela de mano repertoire.
In 1996, he moved to Switzerland to study with his teacher and mentor, Hopkinson Smith, at the prestigious Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Later, he took lessons from maestro Eugène Ferré in France.
In 2001, he recorded his first album for the Arcana label, which was also the first monographic album dedicated entirely to the vihuelist Estevan Daça. In 2008, he dedicated a second album to the Salamanca vihuelist Diego Pisador, which was released by the Carpe Diem label.
In 2008, he embarked on a duo project with British tenor John Potter, revisiting the literature of English lute songs. In 2011, together with Anna Maria Friman and Jacob Heringman, they founded the Alternative History Quartet, with whom they recorded their first album, Secret History, released in 2017 on the ECM label. In 2015, ECM released the quartet's second recording, Amores Pasados, to which musicians such as Tony Banks (Genesis), Sting and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) contributed with previously unreleased works and/or pieces written especially for the quartet.
In 2013, together with soprano María Cristina Kiehr, she founded the duo "Armonía Concertada", dedicated to 16th-century Iberian literature for voice and plucked strings. In 2019, Arcana released the duo's first album, Imaginario: de un libro de música de vihuela, the first reconstruction of a songbook accompanied by the vihuela. In 2021, the Glossa label released the duo's second album, "The Josquin Songbook", with intabulations by Josquin Desprez for two voices and vihuela.
Together with fellow Renaissance specialist Jacob Heringman, he shares a project dedicated to tablature for lutes and vihuelas. In 2014, he recorded the album Cifras Imaginarias with Heringman, which was released in 2017, also on the Arcana label.
With Argentine tenor and researcher Jonatan Alvarado, they record their first album as a duo, The Huehuetenango Songbook, featuring reconstructions and original versions of music from 16th-century Guatemalan manuscripts, released by the Glossa label in 2024.
He is a founding member of the ensemble Da Tempera Velha, with whom he recorded the album The Palacio Songbook, featuring music from late medieval Iberian songbooks, released by the Glossa label in 2023.
He also shares projects with French soprano Perrine Devillers, American soprano Anne Kathryn Olsen, Italian tenor Giovanni Cantarini, Spanish soprano Inés Alonso, and Argentine soprano Nadia Szachniuk. He has given and continues to give regular masterclasses in different parts of the world.
