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Ex Tempore was founded by Florian Heyerick in 1989. As a versatile ensemble it concentrates on a stylistically clear and musically captivating approach to Early, Romantic and Modern vocal music. The variable size of the ensemble allows it to be optimally adapted to any programme with music between 1600 and 1900, but its main activity is concentrated on the music of the 17th and 18th centuries. In its original choice of programmes and its highly qualitatif interpretations the ensemble makes an important contribution to the expansion and renewal of the vocal repertoire. Ex Tempore’s first public performance of a Scarlatti project did not go unnoticed. Since then it appeared with great success in a number of festival and radio performances; its part in the “Vlaamse Opera”-production of Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse (1991) was especially well received.
In 1993 followed interpretations of Une petite Messe Solennelle by Rossini and a series of performances of the Concerto for Cello and Choir by the contemporary Swedish composer Lindgren; in 1994 the interpretation of Telemann’s passion oratorio Der Tod Jesu during the Telemann Festtage in Magdeburg, Germany, met with international acclaim.
In 1995 they were heard at the International Festival of Ancient Music in Bruges, Belgium, performing works by Telemann. They also took part in the performance of Gossec’s Christmas Oratorio La Nativité, broadcast live on Radio 3 in the European Radio Union series. In 1996 Ex Tempore was guest at the Musica Sacra International Music Festival in Maastricht, Netherlands, where they interpreted the Elias oratorio by Felix Mendelssohn. They also participated in several performances of Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess in association with the Flemish Radio Choir and the Brass Band of the Guides. Ex Tempore also sang the choral works for the Disney films The Hunchback of the Notre Dame and Mulan. In 2000, at the festival of Ancient Music in Utrecht, Netherlands, they interpreted the entire Selva Morale e Spirituale by Claudio Monteverdi during three consecutive concerts.
Ex Tempore has recorded many CD’s, including J.S. Bach’s secular cantatas in association with Musica Antiqua Köln, Georg Philipp Telemann’s passion-oratorio Der Tod Jesu, Monteverdi’s Vesperae della Beata Maria Vergine and George Frideric Handel’s Saint John’s Passion in association with Le Mercure Galant. Less well known works like Herzogenberg’s Die Passion proved to be a revelation.
Recently, an intense collaboration developed with La Petite Bande of Sigiswald Kuijken, resulting in tours in France, Spain and Switzerland with works by Haydn (Stabat Mater), W.A. Mozart (Vesperae) and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Christi). In 2003 they presented Graun’s Der Tod Jesu to an international audience. In august 2003 they gave several concerts with Musica Antiqua Köln, at the Festival of “La Chaise Dieu”, France.
The CD with Cantatas and Motets by Johann Ludwig Bach is part of their project Kantata!: short concerts during the weekend on culturally interesting locations, and figuring the music of the countless contemporaries and predecessors of J.S. Bach, whose thousands of cantatas and motets remain to be discovered, and prove to be a true revelation. |
