Students and Gainesville residents will have the opportunity to ring in the holiday season by hearing a unique take on Christmas classics.
The Mediaeval Baebes, a British septet known for its medieval-style music, will be performing in Gainesville for the first time at the University Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
“Gainesville’s full of young people,” said Caroline Heaney, the Baebes’ tour publicist. “It’s a young college town, and that’s part of the audience we want to reach.”
The group is touring to celebrate the American release of its holiday album, “Of Kings & Angels,” which came out Oct. 14.
The concert will consist of popular Christmas tunes like “The Holly and the Ivy,” “Ding Dong Merrily on High,” “Away in a Manger” and “Silent Night,” all of which are featured on the album.
Many of the arrangements of these classics were written by the Baebes’ founder, Katharine Blake, and will take listeners back in time, Heaney said.
“They’re arrangements that you won’t hear anywhere else,” Heaney said.
Amy Douglas, the director of marketing and communications for UF Performing Arts, said the concert will be nontraditional in terms of what people think of Christmas.
“You go to the mall and you hear Mannheim Steamroller,” Douglas said, talking about the American musical group that is known for its blend of classical music and rock in modern renditions of classic Christmas songs. “These songs will be a lot of the songs that people already know, but they’ll be unique arrangements that people haven’t heard.”
The arrangements are different in part because of the incorporation of medieval instruments, Heaney said. Some of these instruments are played by the singers and include the viola da gamba (the cello’s predecessor), ancient lyres and hand saws.
Douglas said so far she expects an audience of about 400 people at the concert.
“It’s why we have the program,” she said. “We want students to be exposed to the many different performing arts genres that are out there.”
UF student tickets are $10, and general admission costs between $20 and $35 depending on the section.
Tickets can be purchased at performingarts.ufl.edu or from the Phillips Center Box Office at 352-392-2787.
[A version of this story ran on page 7 on 12/4/2014]
