Baroque dancers Paige Whitley-Bauguess and Thomas Baird return with a delightful program featuring diverse characters that graced the 18th-century stage: shepherds, harlequins, nymphs, and sailors. The Virgina Gazette calls their movements, "stylish, exacting, deliberate and elegant...effortlessly executed." With accompaniment by The Newberry Consort on violin, harpsichord, and cello-along with a few vocal gems-Les Caractères de la Danse promises to be a tantalizing performance. Prepare to be entertained like a king or queen!

• Friday, April 13, 2012 8:00pm, Ruth Page Center for the Arts
• Saturday, April 14, 2012 8:00pm, Assembly Hall, International House, Hyde Park
• Sunday, April 15, 2012. 3:00pm, Lutkin Hall, Northwestern University

• Pre-concert lectures begin one hour before each performance.

• At the door: $35 general/$5 students (cash only)

Friday's performance is made possible, in part, through the Ruth Page Center Subsidized Theater Rental Program.

Saturday's performance is co-sponsored by International House Global Voices Program. Open to the public. Persons with disabilities that may need assistance should contact the Office of Programs & External Relations in advance of the program at 773-753-2274.

This special event for our 25th season is truly special. Come hear the world’s foremost early string and wind ensembles, The King’s Noyse (directed by David Douglass) and Piffaro (directed by Joan Kimball and Robert Weimken) together with soprano Ellen Hargis join forces in a gorgeous program of music that entertained the late Renaissance nobles of Ferrara. Works by composers Cipriano de Rore, Carlo Gesualdo, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, and their compatriots will showcase the adventurous music which ushered in the early Baroque style of the 17th century. You won’t want to miss the chance to hear the glorious sounds of these two virtuosic ensembles.

• Sunday, March 18, 2012 3:00pm, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, Hyde Park

• At the door: $35 general/$5 students (cash only)

While languishing in illness, Alfonso X (twelfth-century king of Castille, León and Galicia) prayed to the Virgin Mary for divine intercession that he might survive. After making a full recovery, he expressed his gratitude by composing and commissioning songs, or cantigas, recounting Holy Mary's miracles and singing her praises. The result was the lavishly illustrated and justly renowned manuscripts of the Cantigas de Santa Maria. Last season's program of Cantigas de Santa Maria was a big hit and left many listeners asking for more. You asked for it and you got it! Ellen Hargis, four outstanding medieval instrumentalists, and the Newberry Choir return to perform more of these compelling melodies and miracles. Don't miss part two of this lush, earthy, and exotic repertoire of song, gorgeous projected illustrations, and supertitle translations.

• Friday, November 4, 2011 8:00pm, St. Michael in Old Town
• Saturday, November 5, 2011 8:00pm, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, Hyde Park
• Sunday, November 6, 2011 3:00pm, Alice Millar Chapel, Northwestern University

• Pre-concert lectures begin one hour before each performance.

This season's Howard Mayer Brown Memorial concert features an ensemble of eight women's voices directed by Ellen Hargis. We'll explore the music of the baroque convents of Italy and Mexico, where behind cloister walls, these gifted women composed, arranged, and performed virtuoso music for their own devotional use, singing in astonishing vocal ranges. Organ and viola da gamba will accompany the music of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, Alba Tressina, and Sulpitia Cesis; and from the Newberry Library Choirbooks, compositions by Fabían Pérez Ximeno, Juan de Lienas, and Tomás Luis de Victoria.

• Friday, January 20, 2012. 8:00pm, Saint Clement Church
• Saturday, January 21, 2012. 8:00pm, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, Hyde Park
• Sunday, January 22, 2012. 3:00pm, Alice Millar Chapel, Northwestern University

• Pre-concert lectures begin one hour before each performance.

• At the door: $35 general/$5 students (cash only)