Patrick McPartland/Staff Photographer - Blessed Trinity Church in Buffalo is an architectural treasure.
Blessed Trinity Parish in Buffalo will conclude its 2011-12 Trinity Series of “beautiful music in a beautiful space,” with a special concert by The Camerata di Sant’ Antonio, made possible by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. The concert will take place July 22 at 2:30 p.m., with a pre-concert tour of the building beginning at 1:30.
The Camerata, under the direction of Christopher Weber, has been performing since 2003. Its musicians are seasoned performers from orchestras throughout the United States and around the world. Their primary goal is to present concerts that preserve and celebrate the cultural heritage of the community. Preceding the concert, history professor and Camarata member Martin Ederer will present an architectural lecture and tour.
This is one of the rare concerts the Camerata performs outside of St. Anthony of Padua Church in downtown Buffalo. Weber said it has been a long desire of his to play at Blessed Trinity.
“I’ve always wanted to because that was the church of my grandparents on both sides of my family. They’re from the old German neighborhood that was there at the time,” he said. “My parents were married at that church, many of my aunts and uncles and so on. So I thought it would be really nice to perform in that church. I said if I ever get the money, you’re first on the list. When the grant came through, they were still first on the list.”
The first half of the concert will be very German with Mozart’s Salzburg Symphony no. 2 in B flat and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 for three solo violins, violas and cellos, which has been described as all contrapuntal writing.
“It very much reflects the stonework in that church that winds. If you look at the brickwork outside how it weaves and interweaves and so on. It’s detailed in much the same way,” Weber said.
He calls Mozart’s music very architectural.
“One of the reasons Mozart’s music is so great is because it is so balanced in the structure of its phrases. It doesn’t leave you wanting. It is always satisfying in the question and answer of melody. It is also very transparent in that sense, which makes it so difficult to play. There is no sound covering for you all the time.”
Blessed Trinity Church is considered one of the finest examples of 12th-century Lombard Romanesque architecture in the United States.
“Probably one of the most outstanding features about it is the people who got together and decided to essentially, in one building, try to represent as many Christian symbols as possible. So in that respect, it’s a wonderful lexicon of Christian symbols, Christian iconography in one place,” Ederer said. “Every corbel in the place has a symbol on it. There’s Hebrew symbolism, there’s Greek symbolism, there’s Latin symbolism. It’s everywhere.”
The concert is open to all, with a reception to follow. A free will offering is suggested.
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