The San Luis Early Music Consort was founded in 1985 to support the activities of the Central Coast Renaissance Historical Society. Over time, its mission has broadened to encompass the Baroque and Early Classical eras, and to incorporate little known New World treasures into the rich repertoire of the Old World masters. Director John Warren feels a special obligation as a Californian to give early music a local relevance by researching and presenting music from California’s Spanish and Mexican periods. Indeed, music from all parts of Colonial Mexico is an integral part of every Californian's heritage, and John Warren is determined to uplift the great composers of early Mexico from their ill-deserved obscurity into the bright daylight of frequent performance.

Mr. Warren is also aware that Baroque music of both the Old and New worlds was married to dance, theater, worship, and celebration. The idea of the "concert hall" was almost unknown, and most music was created for some sort of occasion. Thus, many performances by the Consort incorporate elements of costume, mime, dance, procession, or festivity, to whatever extent modern research shows them to be authentically appropriate.

Young performers, willing to strive for professional standards, are encouraged to integrate their talents into the ensemble wherever possible.---And young people are always encouraged to be part of the Consort's audiences. Through these policies, future generations can grow to treasure early music not as a museum piece but as a living art.

The most distinctive part of the Consort's repertoire consists of the delightful dances from the Hague Manuscript. This collection of hundreds of melodies was found in a Mexican village store by the musicologist Eleanor Hague, who donated this priceless treasure to the Braun Research Library of the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles. Many of the anonymous tunes seem to date from the mid-l8th century or earlier, although a few dozen were added later in another hand. Their titles are generally in Old Spanish, but often in idiosyncratically spelled French or even English. A few known pieces by such European composers as Lully and Purcell lurk among their unfamiliar neighbors. Below many of the pieces, in archaic and frequently abbreviated Spanish, are suggested dance steps.

Thanks to the kindness of Librarian Klm Walters, and Associate Librarian, Richard Buchen, John Warren is orchestrating the Hague Manuscripts line melodies according to the practice of their times. In this way, music that had hidden in darkness for centuries returns to the bright and flower-scented daylight which gave it birth.

The Hague dances have a magical effect on audiences. Influences from all over the globe--most dramatically from France ---dance tantalizingly against a background that is always fundamentally Mexican. The melodies are intriguingly novel, yet they carry a powerful sense of familiarity, like a memory that one is not sure came from a daylight incident or a vivid dream.

Another distinctive repertoire in which the Consort specializes is that of the villancico. Villancicos are festive and usually syncopated part-songs, treating Biblical themes in vernacular tongues. They spanned three centuries from the 16th to the 18th, and were most common in Spanish-speaking countries of the Old and New Worlds, al- though they have been written in languages ranging from Flemish to Nahuati, and often incorporate accents denoting particular ethnic or occupational groups, or representing theatrical figures or personality types. Many villancicos show a strong West African influence, marrying complex African rhythms to European traditions of harmony and part-writing.

When the Consort performs the work of such familiar European masters as Bach and Couperin, it is not with the intent of enshrining them on a dusty shelf in history, but of highlighting that they, too, created innovations that were often outrageously daring, but which were pursued not for the mere sensation of novelty, but to enrich expressiveness within a deeply held ideal of beauty. The Baroque was a time of unparalleled creativity--a time when challenging thought and deep feeling were part of the same musical language. It was a time when people knew how to achieve pleasure without compulsiveness, and an intensity of feeling without addiction. By bringing its music to full and vivid life, the San Luis Early Music Consort provides needed medicine for our troubled times.

Although the San Luis Early Music Consort lacks the resources of big-city Ensembles. It is committed to enriching the cultural life of its region while seeking opportunities to present its unique repertoire elsewhere. The Consort always welcomes donations. Future plans which your tax- deductible donation that could help us implement the following:

• Acquisition of authentic reproductions of early instruments and dance costumes.
• Opportunities for members of the Consort to study under recognized masters of early instrument performance and authentic early dance and theater.
• Further research in Colonial Mexican and Early California music, a field in which new discoveries of hidden repertoire and information on proper performance practices await dedicated and informed detective work.
• Outreach to economically disadvantaged, audiences of all ages.

The San Luis Early Music Consort brings the joys and treasures of the Baroque Era, a time when grace and refinement were paramount, to today's audiences. The Baroque period is commonly thought of as a European phase. However, it has a multi-cultural heritage that would never have flourished without instruments from Islamic peoples, costumes from West Africa, dances from Native America, and many other components.

From the danzas and villancicos of early California and Mexico, to the more familiar cantatas and suites of Europe. ---Always the Consort strives for authenticity in performance and atmosphere. The Central Coast is moving toward artistic maturity. By including performers of all ages, the San Luis Early Music Consort invests in that process.

By recreating the grace and refinement of the past, the Consort honors and renews these virtues for the present and the future, thereby providing an opportunity for artistic growth throughout the community.