THE HANSEATIC WAY
A Musical Journey Through a Shared Past
The Hanseatic Way: A Musical Journey Through a Shared Past (artistic leader Rodrigo Calveyra) is a musical and educational project, implemented in cooperation between early music ensembles Canto Fiorito (Lithuania) and Musica Antiqua Salzburg (Austria) as well as with ERP Music management company (Estonia) and supported by Creative Europe programme of the European Union and Lithuanian Council for Culture.
The Hanseatic League was a commercial confederation of merchant guilds and their market towns. It dominated maritime trade in the North and Baltic Seas between 1300 and 1700, with trade routes that extended from London to Tallinn, enabling vast commercial and cultural exchange. Via a widely known historical phenomena of the Hanseatic League, this project aims to raise the interest of contemporary society and especially of children and youth in a shared European cultural heritage.
A specially designed concert program, which will be performed in 7 European countries by early music ensembles Canto Fiorito and Musica Antiqua Salzburg, represents composers from each Hansa country chronologically, in a simulated journey through space and time – through XVI-XVII centuries, starting in England, passing through Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia, Poland and finally reaching the Baltic states. The programme presents some of the pearls of the renaissance polyphonic music, represented by William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Orlando di Lasso and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, and jewels of the seconda prattica, such as Heinrich Schütz, Bartłomiej Pękiel and Tarquinio Merula, not forgetting the Venetian poly-choral tradition in the music of Hieronymus Praetorius and Giovanni Battista Cocciola.
The concerts will be accompanied by the screening of a video, compiled from historical images of Hanseatic cities, created in XV-XVII centuries, and artworks by children and youth, inspired by respective historical images. Children will be involved in collaborative creation of the videofilm through the art contest, the best authors of which will receive prizes and will be presented to the audience of the concerts together with musicians.
Apart of the concerts and children art contest, the project includes other educational and audience development activities, such as media presentations of Hanseatic culture at schools, master classes of early music and open rehearsals for music students and teachers, direct audio broadcasts of the concerts through specially created mobile app and flash-mobs in public spaces, enabling direct interaction between musicians and wider public.
For concert dates and venues please see our Calendar.
For more information on children art contest please look here.
Historical images of the Hanseatic cities for the children art contest can be download here