LEWISTON — Music for the rebec is scheduled for this week’s Oasis of Music, at Trinity Church, 247 Bates Street, on Wednesday April 18 for a half-hour program beginning at 12:30.
The rebec, to be played by Greg Boardman, is a three-stringed ancestor of the ever-popular violin. This instrument, possibly inspired by the rebab as developed in North Africa and the Middle East, gained popularity in Europe and was widely used until supplanted by viols and finally members of the violin family, which has remained the favored bowed string instrument since the seventeenth century.
Boardman’s rebec was made in 1976 by Ken Miller in Cambridge, Maine, who studied the shape and proportions of the instrument in medieval works of art. The bow, recently made by John Dring of County Galway, Ireland, is very different from the contemporary variety, with a rough hank of horse hair attached to either end of what appears to be a bow ready to launch an arrow.
Boardman will perform dance and sacred music of the medieval and Renaissance periods, mostly from England, France and Italy, accompanying himself on the harmonium.
Admission to the Oasis of Music is free. For more information call 207-344-3106.
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