Medieval Women's Choir has beguiling new CD

Medieval Women's Choir

Under Margriet Tindemans' artistic direction, the Seattle-based Medieval Women's Choir is more eclectic than it sounds, spicing its choral offerings with occasional instrumental interludes and serving up a medieval text or two in contemporary musical settings.

At least that's the case with the ensemble's beguiling new CD, "Laude Novella: Music of the Italian Middle Ages." Highlights include new compositions by Peter Seibert and Tindemans herself, as well as work by Franco-Flemish composer Johannes Ciconia (c. 1335-1411), whose intricate twinnings of voice with voice or fiddle with recorder never quite land in the place you think they're going to land.

On the concert front, Tindemans and company take a Spanish turn this weekend with "!Feliz Navidad!": a concert that draws on the Christian, Jewish and Moorish traditions of the court of 13th-century monarch King Alfonso X. Here's a group with an impressive range and sound. It opens its 20th season at 8 p.m. Saturday, St. James Cathedral, 804 Ninth Ave., Seattle; $20-$25 (206-264-4822 or www.medievalwomenschoir.org).

Michael Upchurch,

Seattle Times arts writer