From medieval song to contemporary vocal creation, animals have always spoken for us. Foolish Men and Refined Beasts traces this powerful lineage, weaving together Trecento polyphony, Renaissance spirituality, and 20th century and contemporary works in a strikingly coherent musical journey.
Lambs, eagles, swans, and phoenixes embody ideals of purity, beauty, and transcendence, while the grotesque horse Fauvel exposes corruption and human folly. Across centuries, composers use the animal voice to say what words cannot, through ritual, satire, repetition, and sonic intensity. Medieval satire resonates uncannily with Meredith Monk’s raw vocal theatre; the labyrinthine lines of the Ars subtilior find echoes in the inner landscapes of Distler and Ligeti.
At once sensorial, theatrical, and deeply human, this program reveals the animal as an ageless mirror of our desires, fears, and excesses. A concert that dissolves boundaries between eras, inviting listeners into a vivid, physical experience of the voice : timeless, unsettling, and irresistibly alive.
