Experience the variety of music and moods of the Christmas season in early Italy, beginning with the quiet, prayerful days before Christmas and culminating with the Epiphany Feast. Magnificent settings of O Magnum Mysterium and Hodie Christus natus est have captured the wonder of the Nativity for over 400 years, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s Rex Melchior evokes awe and a sense of grandeur as it illustrates the narrative of the Three Kings. The caccia - the word translates as “chase” - stokes the excitement of the hunt for the Yule boar with sounds that mimic hunting horns and baying hounds. The conviviality of the holiday is captured by popular medieval dances called estampie that brought the community together in the days leading to the joyful Epiphany feast.

Selections of Italian Renaissance artwork will be projected onstage during the concert to accompany Piffaro’s virtuosic multi-instrumentalists, who are able to draw upon a broad aural palette thanks to their remarkable collection of over forty meticulously reconstructed period instruments, including shawms, dulcians, krumhorns, sackbuts, recorders of varying sizes, bagpipes, lutes, and a variety of percussion instruments.