Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI: Un Mar de Musicas
Saturday, April 11, 2026 @ 7:30 pm
Tickets go on sale June 23, 2025
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Adult: $60-$100
Student: $25
Youth (18 & under): $15
Tickets include free parking
Mechanics Hall:321 Main St., Worcester
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Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI
Jordi Savall, “ a magical musician, ” ( Washington Post ) brings his ancient music ensemble Hespèrion XXI to the stage for a collaboration honoring the more than 25 million victims of European slavery. Featuring the works of Spanish, Portuguese, Mexican, and French composers from the 15th through 19th centuries, this program brings the music and the instruments of these cultures to Worcester. Savall, an acclaimed gamba player, expertly weaves tradition with today, combining historical and modern instruments on stage.
“With music, you must know about history, about current events, how we can prepare a better life. If an artist is not able to change the world, he’s not an artist.” ( Jordi Savall ) In 2008, UNESCO appointed Savall an “Artist for Peace”, and in 2009 he was appointed an Ambassador of the European Year for Creativity and Innovation by the European Union. Savall is vocal about discovering the “magical mystery of music”, and passionate about its place in the world. Learn more about Savall in this interview .
What is the Viola da Gamba? The viola da gamba (also referred to as ‘gamba and viol) is a six-stringed fretted instrument that’s held and bowed like a cello. Popular during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, the instrument emerged to fill in continuo sections, in Gregorian Chant, in ensembles. It gained popularity at the time and has made a resurgence in popularity in the last century; to this day, there remain a number of solo works written for the instrument as well as paintings of musicians with the instrument since its invention.
PROGRAM
Un Mar de Músicas (A Sea of Music): 1440 to 1880: A dialogue with the music of Africa, America and the Caribbean
Including works by Gaspar Fernandes, Diego Duron, Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, Felip Olivelles, and Santiago de Murcia
About Jordi Savall
Jordi Savall is one of the most versatile musical personalities of his generation. For more than 50 years, he has rescued musical gems from the obscurity of neglect and oblivion and given them back for all to enjoy. A tireless researcher into early music, he interprets and performs the repertory both as a gambist and a conductor. His activities as a concert performer, teacher, researcher and creator of new musical and cultural projects have made him a leading figure in the reappraisal of historical music. Together with Montserrat Figueras, he founded the ensembles Hespèrion XXI (1974), La Capella Reial de Catalunya (1987) and Le Concert des Nations (1989), with whom he explores and creates a world of emotion and beauty shared with millions of early music enthusiasts around the world.
With his key participation in Alain Corneau’s film Tous les Matins du Monde (awarded the César Cinema Prize for the best soundtrack), his intense concert activity (about 140 concerts per year), his record releases (six recordings per year) and the creation in 1998, together with Montserrat Figueras, of his own record label, Alia Vox, Jordi Savall has shown that early music does not have to be elitist, but rather that it appeals to an increasingly wide and diverse audience of all age groups.
Savall has recorded and released more than 230 albums covering the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical music repertories, with a special focus on the Hispanic and Mediterranean musical heritage, receiving many awards and distinctions such as the Midem Classical Award, the International Classical Music Award, and a Grammy Award. His concert programs have made music an instrument of mediation to achieve understanding and peace between different and sometimes warring peoples and cultures. Accordingly, guest artists appearing with his ensembles include Arab, Israeli, Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Afghan, Mexican and North American musicians. In 2008, Jordi Savall was appointed European Union Ambassador for intercultural dialogue and, together with Montserrat Figueras, was named “Artist for Peace” under the UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors program.
Between 2020 and 2021, to mark Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, he conducted the complete symphonies with Le Concert des Nations and recorded them in two collections entitled Beethoven Révolution . The impact they have had worldwide has been defined as “a miracle” ( Fanfare ), and volume II has been distinguished with the Schallplattenkritik Prize for the best orchestral record.
Jordi Savall’s prolific musical career has brought him the highest national and international distinctions, including honorary doctorates from the Universities of Evora (Portugal), Barcelona (Catalonia), Louvain (Belgium) and Basel (Switzerland), the order of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (France), the Praetorius Music Prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of Lower Saxony, the Gold Medal of the Generalitat of Catalonia, the Helena Vaz da Silva Award, and the prestigious Léonie Sonning Prize, which is considered the Nobel prize of the music world. Recently, he has been elected Honorary Member by the Royal Philharmonic Society, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and la Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
HESPÈRION XXI
Ancient music’s most important value stems from its ability as a universal artistic language to transmit feelings, emotions and ancestral ideas that even today can enthral the contemporary listener. With a repertoire that encompasses the period between the 10th and 18th centuries,
Hespèrion XXI
searches continuously for new points of union between the East and West, with a clear desire for integration and for the recovery of international musical heritage, especially that of the Mediterranean basin and with links to the New World.
In 1974 Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras, together with Lorenzo Alpert and Hopkinson Smith, founded the ancient music ensemble Hespèrion XX in Basel as a way of recovering and disseminating the rich and fascinating musical repertoire prior to the 19th century on the basis of historical criteria and the use of original instruments. The name Hespèrion means “an inhabitant of Hesperia”, which in ancient Greek referred to the two most westerly peninsulas in Europe: the Iberian and the Italian. It was also the name given to the planet Venus as it appeared in the west. At the turn of the 21st century Hespèrion XX became known as Hespèrion XXI .
Today Hespèrion XXI is central to the understanding of the music of the period between the Middle Ages and the Baroque. Their labours to recover works, scores, instruments and unpublished documents have a double and incalculable value. On one hand, their rigorous research provides new information and understanding about the historical knowledge of the period, and on the other hand, the exquisite performances enable people to freely enjoy the aesthetic and spiritual delicacy of the works of this period.
Right from the beginning Hespèrion XXI set out on a clearly innovative and artistic course that would lead to the establishment of a school in the field of ancient music because they conceived, and continue to conceive, ancient music as an experimental musical tool and with it they seek the maximum beauty and expressiveness in their performances. Any musician in the field of ancient music will have a commitment to the original spirit of each work and has to learn to connect with it by studying the composer, the instruments of the period, the work itself and the circumstances surrounding it. But as a craftsman in the art of music, he is also obliged to make decisions about the piece being played: a musician’s capacity to connect the past with the present and to connect culture with its dissemination depend on his skill, creativity and capacity to transmit emotions.
Hespèrion XXI ’s repertoire includes, amongst others, the music of the Sephardi Jews, Castilian romances, pieces from the Spanish Golden Age, and Europa de les Nacions. Some of their most celebrated concert programmes are Les Cantigues de Santa Maria d’Alfons X El Savi, La Diàspora Sefardí, the music of Jerusalem, Istanbul, Armenia and the Folías Criollas. Thanks to the outstanding work of numerous musicians and collaborators who have worked with the ensemble over all these years Hespèrion XXI still plays a key role in the recovery and reappraisal of the musical heritage, and one that has great resonance throughout the world. The group has published more than 60 CDs and performs concerts for the whole world, appearing regularly at the great international festivals of ancient music.
La Capella Reial de Catalunya
Following the model of the famous Medieval “royal chapels” for which the great masterpieces of both religious and secular music were composed on the Iberian Peninsula, in 1987 Montserrat Figueras and Jordi Savall founded La Capella Reial
,
one of the first vocal groups devoted to the performance of Golden Age music on historical principles and consisting exclusively of Hispanic and Latin voices. In 1990, when the ensemble received the regular patronage of the Generalitat of Catalonia, it changed its name to La Capella Reial de Catalunya.
The newly-formed ensemble specialized in the recovery and performance on historical principles of the polyphonic and vocal music of Spain and Europe from the Middle Ages and Golden Age up to the 19th century. La Capella Reial de Catalunya shares with Hespèrion XXI the same artistic outlook and goals, rooted in respect for the profoundly spiritual and artistic dimension of each work, combining quality and authenticity regarding the style of the period with a careful attention to the declamation and expressive projection of the poetic text.
The ensemble’s extensive repertory ranges from the Medieval music of the various cultures of the Mediterranean to the great masters of the Renaissance and the Baroque. Some of their most celebrated concert programs are the Missa de Batalla by Joan Cererols, Vespro della Beata Vergine by Claudio Monteverdi, the Cantigas of Alfonso X (the Wise), El Llibre Vermell of Montserrat, Sephardic songs, the music of The Elche Mystery Play , the ballads from Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quijote , the Cancioneros del Siglo de Oro (the Songbooks of the Golden Age) and Mozart’s Requiem . Recently, the group has also performed and recorded J. S. Bach’s Saint Mark’s Passion , Handel’s Messiah , Vivaldi’s oratorio Juditha Triumphans , J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio , and Joseph Haydn’s The Creation , which has won international critical acclaim.
The group has distinguished itself in various Baroque and Classical opera repertories, as well as in contemporary works by Arvo Pärt. The Capella Reial de Catalunya played on de Jacques Rivette’s soundtrack of the film Jeanne La Pucelle (1993) on the life of Joan of Arc.
In 1992, La Capella Reial de Catalunya made their opera debut accompanying all the performances of Le Concert des Nations. They have received various awards and distinctions in recognition of their more than 40 CDs, notably the Midem Classical Award and the Grammy Award. Under the direction of Jordi Savall, La Capella Reial de Catalunya pursue an intense programme of concerts and recordings all over the world, and since the ensemble’s creation it has regularly performed at the major international early music festivals.
Jordi Savall
“I believe that the good of a civilization lies in its ability to reflect on its history. If we don’t know our history well enough, we can’t create a good future. And I believe that coming into contact with this living music from different cultures, and hearing the words that tell us what happened, can make a difference.”
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