Legendae sanctorum

"In honorem Sanctorum…!" The opening concert of the 27th year will be heard in the otherworldly acoustics of the Church of the Virgin Mary and Slavic patrons in the Emmaus Abbey. An unforgettable experience will be provided by the phenomenal London group Stile Antico, who will perform in the Czech Republic for the very first time. The cornerstone of the evening will be the reverence for the saints - great men and women of faith who were perceived as models of a pious life and whose lives are told by a specific literary genre - legends. It will be sung, for example, in honor of St. James, Andrew, Cecilia, Catherine and Francis of Assisi, whose death will be exactly 800 years in 2026.

The program, put together specifically for this occasion, will revive the repertoire from the pens of the English, Franco-Flemish, Italian and Spanish giants of Renaissance polyphony and present part of the "musical hagiography" of the 16th and early 17th centuries. It is framed by the Credo from Marcelli's Missa papae and Allegri's Miserere mei – works that are themselves shrouded in many music-historical myths and legends. Immerse yourself in a mosaic of twelve voices, in which music, history and Christian mysticism merge into one stream of pure beauty!

Stile Antico
Helen Ashby, Kate Ashby, Rebecca Hickey - soprano
Cara Curran, Emma Ashby, Rosie Parker - alto
Matthew Howard, Benedict Hymas, Jonathan Hanley - tenor
Gareth Thomas, James Arthur, Nathan Harrison - bass