Performance

Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI with La Capella Reial de Catalunya

Songs, Battles & Dances from the Old & New World: 1100-1780

April 13, 2026

Apr 13

Monday 7:30 PM

Spaulding Auditorium 2h00m

The early music icon and his ensembles explore how music served as a tool of faith, resistance and survival during seven centuries of global transformations.

Renowned Spanish ethnomusicologist Jordi Savall returns to the Hop with his latest project. Songs, Battles and Dances is a sound journey that traces the map of the influences crossed between the old and the new world through a vibrant collection of music spanning Medieval troubadours, Slave Songs from the African diaspora, indigenous melodies and Sephardic prayers.

The viola da gamba virtuoso joins forces with his usual ensembles—La Capella Reial de Catalunya and Hespèrion XXI—and with musicians from Canada, Guadeloupe and Mexico (with the Tembembe Ensamble Continuo). More than 20 musicians come together on a single stage to remind us that music has always been the refuge of oppressed communities.

Funded in part by the Marion and Frederick B. Whittemore 1953 Distinguished Artists Series and the Robert S. Weil 1940 Fund in Support of Hopkins Center Visiting Performing Artist Program.

Photo by Toni Peñarroya

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For more than 50 years, Jordi Savall, one of the most versatile musical personalities of his generation, has rescued musical gems from the obscurity of neglect and oblivion and given them back for all to enjoy. A tireless researcher into early music, he interprets and performs the repertory both as a gambist and a conductor. His activities as a concert performer, teacher, researcher and creator of new musical and cultural projects have made him a leading figure in the reappraisal of historical music. Together with Montserrat Figueras, he founded the ensembles Hespèrion XXI (1974), La Capella Reial de Catalunya (1987) and Le Concert des Nations (1989), with whom he explores and creates a world of emotion and beauty shared with millions of early music enthusiasts around the world.

La Capella Reial de Catalunya
Following the model of the famous Medieval "royal chapels" for which the great masterpieces of both religious and secular music were composed on the Iberian Peninsula, in 1987 Montserrat Figueras and Jordi Savall founded La Capella Reial, one of the first vocal groups devoted to the performance of Golden Age music on historical principles and consisting exclusively of Hispanic and Latin voices. In 1990, when the ensemble received the regular patronage of the Generalitat of Catalonia, it changed its name to La Capella Reial de Catalunya. The newly-formed ensemble specialized in the recovery and performance on historical principles of the polyphonic and vocal music of Spain and Europe from the Middle Ages and Golden Age up to the 19th century. La Capella Reial de Catalunya shares with Hespèrion XXI the same artistic outlook and goals, rooted in respect for the profoundly spiritual and artistic dimension of each work, combining quality and authenticity regarding the style of the period with a careful attention to the declamation and expressive projection of the poetic text.

In 1974 Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras, together with Lorenzo Alpert and Hopkinson Smith, founded the ancient music ensemble Hespèrion XX in Basel as a way of recovering and disseminating the rich and fascinating musical repertoire prior to the 19th century on the basis of historical criteria and the use of original instruments. The name Hespèrion means "an inhabitant of Hesperia", which in ancient Greek referred to the two most westerly peninsulas in Europe: the Iberian and the Italian. It was also the name given to the planet Venus as it appeared in the west. At the turn of the 21st century Hespèrion XX became known as Hespèrion XXI. Today Hespèrion XXI is central to the understanding of the music of the period between the Middle Ages and the Baroque. Their labours to recover works, scores, instruments and unpublished documents have a double and incalculable value. On one hand, their rigorous research provides new information and understanding about the historical knowledge of the period, and on the other hand, the exquisite performances enable people to freely enjoy the aesthetic and spiritual delicacy of the works of this period.