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Barbara
Thornton, co-founder of Sequentia: Ensemble for Early Music,
died November 8, 1998, at the age of 48 in Cologne, Germany,
due to complications related to a brain tumor. Tributes to
Barbara have appeared in many publications; her loss is immeasurable.
Barbara
Thornton, a pioneer in the rediscovery and performance of
the music of Hildegard and other medieval repertories, and
founding member of the ensemble, Sequentia, will be forever
remembered for her dedication and passion for medieval music.
SCHOLARSHIP:
In conjunction with Benjamin Bagby, Early
Music America has created a scholarship fund for young musicians,
which is a living memorial to Barbara Thornton's work and dedication
to her craft. For further details, please contact the Early
Music America. Those who wish to contribute may send:
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A check (in US dollars, drawn on a US bank)
payable to Early Music America; indicate in the memo line
"Thornton Scholarship Fund." Mail to:
- Early
Music America
11421-1/2 Bellflower Rd
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Cleveland, OH 44106-3990 USA
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A cheque (in Canadian dollars, drawn on a Canadian bank)
payable to Early Music Vancouver; indicate in the memo line
"Thornton Scholarship Fund." Mail to:
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Early Music Vancouver
1254 West 7th Ave
Vancouver, BC V6J 1B6 CANADA
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A donation via American Express, VISA, or MasterCard. Send
account number, expiration date, and dollar amount of gift
to Early Music America via mail to the address above, via
fax to 216/229-1688, or via email to EMA
(again, please indicate that the donation is intended for
the "Thornton Scholarship Fund").
All
donations are tax-deductible, according to law (US & Canada),
and will be acknowledged.
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Remembering Barbara Thornton |
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"Ms.
Thornton, whose soprano voice had a mezzolike hue and texture
that gave it a distinctive character, was a specialist in
the music of the 12th-century abbess Hildegard von Bingen,
and it was largely because of Ms. Thornton's performances
and recordings with Sequentia that Hildegard and her works
have lately become the focus of scholarly and popular interest."
--
New York Times,November 15, 1998
"Thornton
was concerned both to establish the individuality of the music
she was performing and also to bring it to her audiences not
as some museum piece but as a living experience, to be witnessed
as a performance might have been almost a thousand years ago
. . . Barbara Thornton's voice was an important element in
Sequntia's sucess. Andrew Porter wrote in the New Yorker that
she had 'one of the most beautiful sopranos -- strong and
pure, and passionate -- that I have heard in a long time.'
Other critics variously describer her as having 'a tone as
focused and intense as a medieval reed instrument,' sounding
'like a divine messenger of absolute truth.'"
-- Martin Anderson, The Thursday Review, The Independent,
November 19, 1998
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"Barbara
herself was a fanatic in her art; and there are too few fanatics
of her sort. She passionately devoted herself to the single
repertory of medieval music, choosing not to perform other repertories
for the sake of that one. And she let that repertory be so challengingly
and productively hard, for herself and for the artists
she directed and the students she taught . . . What I remember
most vividly, and will miss most, is simply the sound of Barbara's
voice as she sang. The sounds she made were not always pretty;
they were, across her astonishingly wide emotional range, urgent,
harsh, meditative, giddy, exultant, angelic . . . It was an
intense, exhilarating aesthetic experience to hear Barbara sing."
-- Lawrence Rosenwald, Early Music America, Winter 1998-1999 |
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