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Seattle Baroque Orchestra: Musica Transalpina
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Town Hall Seattle, 8:00 p.m.

Elizabeth Blumenstock, Guest Director, Violin

Elizabeth Blumenstock directs an ensemble of eight players to celebrate the musical connection between Italy and Germany. The instrumental composers Castello, Uccellini, and Turini drew inspiration from the 17th century’s vocal brilliance and passion that lead to the development of Italian opera. Their works inspired instrumental virtuosity in a generation of German composers, including Biber, Becker, Schmelzer, and others. The program includes sonatas for solo violin, duos and trios, and “sonata il tutti” for the full ensemble.

Blumenstock is widely admired as a performer of compelling verve and eloquence. She has played with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra since 1981 as a regular soloist, concertmaster, and leader. She is also a regular concertmaster with American Bach Soloists, the Göttingen Händelfestspiel Orchestra and the Italian ensemble Il Complesso Barocco. Blumenstock has performed throughout the United States and abroad, appearing with the Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Los Angeles Opera, Carmel Bach Festival, Oulunsalo Soi Festival (Finland), and San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival.

International Series
Lucidarium: Una Festa Ebraica – Celebrating Life

Saturday, November 16, 2013
Town Hall Seattle, 8:00 p.m.

Italy’s premier ensemble for Medieval and Renaissance music returns to Seattle. In Jewish life, living a full life, and fully experiencing every stage of the life cycle, is considered no less important than prayers, respecting the Sabbath, observing holidays or following dietary and behavioral rules. Reflecting this, a large amount of “party music” survives: songs about the life cycle itself, humorous poems, songs for women’s gatherings; for celebrating life’s transitions and the joyful moments of the liturgical year. With a wide array of instruments, including recorders, pipe and tabor, dulcian, lute, colascione, viola da mano, percussion, hammer dulcimer, and Renaissance guitar, the virtuosi of Lucidarium keep the party going – “to life, l’Chaim!”

International Series
Blue Heron:
Advent and Christmas in Medieval England

Saturday, December 7, 2013
St. James Cathedral, 8:00 p.m.

Blue Heron, the Boston-based a cappella ensemble, has been hailed by the New Yorker as the American heir apparent to the Tallis Scholars. The ensemble of ten singers and early harp makes its Seattle debut at St. James Cathedral with Advent and Christmas in Medieval England, a festive program of carols, motets and plainchant for Advent and Christmas from 15th-century England, featuring music by Leonel Power, John Dunstaple, English carols, and Sarum plainchant.

Seattle Baroque Orchestra: Dresden Concertos
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Town Hall Seattle, 8:00 p.m.

Rachel Barton Pine, Guest Director, Violin, Viola d’amore

Rachel Barton Pine directs and performs concertos for the viola d’amore, a seven-stringed cousin of the viola da gamba that reigned as a solo instrument during the 18th century. This performance features works by Vivaldi composed especially for the viola d’amore virtuoso Johann Georg Pisendel, concertos by Pisendel, and a trio sonata by Telemann.

Pine has appeared as a soloist with orchestras around the world under conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Zubin Mehta, Neeme Järvi, Marin Alsop, Semyon Bychkov, Plácido Domingo, and José Serebrier, as well as baroque chamber music with Trio Settecento. Her festival appearances include Marlboro, Ravinia, Montreal, Salzburg, and Salzburg’s Mozartwoche. Her musical interests extend well beyond classical to baroque, folk, Celtic, rock, and jazz.

International Series
The King’s Singers: In Memoriam Josquin des Prez

Saturday, February 15, 2014
Town Hall Seattle, 8:00 p.m.

Back by popular demand after their EMG debut last season, the King’s Singers present In Memoriam Josquin des Prez, an evening celebrating the life and works of the Renaissance master. One of the world’s most celebrated vocal groups, the King’s Singers are instantly recognizable for their spot-on intonation, impeccable vocal blend, flawless articulation of the text, and incisive timing. The concert consists of works by Josquin, his contemporary Jean Richafort, as well as 20th-century composer Maurice Duruflé’s Quatre motets sur des thèmes grégoriens. The program concludes with the ensemble’s celebrated arrangements in close harmony.

International Series
Hesperion XXI: Folias Antiguas y Criollas

Friday, February 28, 2014
Town Hall Seattle, 8:00 p.m.

Jordi Savall and his famous ensemble combine forces with the Mexican folklore ensemble Tembembe Ensamble Continuo to present Folias Antiguas y Criollas: From the Ancient World to the New World. Special guest harpist Andrew Lawrence King joins the ensemble of seven, with works by Diego Ortiz, Pedro Guerrero Moresca, Código Trujillo, and Colonial and folk music from all over South America.
 
 

Seattle Baroque Orchestra:
Bach Cantatas for Lent and Easter
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Town Hall Seattle, 8:00 p.m.

Kevin Mallon, Guest Director

Kevin Mallon conducts an evening of Bach’s beloved cantatas appropriate for Lent and Easter: BWV 42 Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats, BWV 158 Der Friede sei mit dir, BWV 159 Sehet! Wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem, and BWV 4 Christ lag in Todesbanden. The full Seattle Baroque Orchestra, complete with vocal soloists, oboes and bassoon, will be featured.

A native of Belfast, Ireland, Mallon founded and serves as Music Director of the Aradia Ensemble, currently the Orchestra in Residence at the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy (COSI). His other appointments include Music Director for the Toronto Chamber Orchestra and Ottawa’s Thirteen Strings, and Conductor of the West Side Chamber Orchestra in New York. Mallon learned his craft as a violinist with such orchestras as the Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic, and later as Concertmaster with Le Concert Spirituel and Les Arts Florissants in Paris. He has recorded more than fifty CDs for the Naxos label.

International Series
Ensemble Caprice: Salsa Baroque

Saturday, April 12, 2014
Town Hall Seattle, 8:00 p.m.

Under the artistic direction of Matthias Maute and Sophie Larivière, Ensemble Caprice is renowned for its innovative interpretations of Baroque music. The renowned Canadian ensemble returns with its own take on the Euro-New World connection. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the musical dialogue between the Old and the New Worlds resulted in a fascinating blend of European polyphony and Latin American rhythmic vitality. Gems from Spain and Colonial South America will be performed on violin, flutes, recorders, baroque guitar, violoncello and a wide array of percussion. Careful, the salsa goes right to your head!

Seattle Baroque Orchestra:
Delirio Amoroso – Handel’s Italian Years
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Town Hall Seattle, 8:00 p.m.

Alexander Weimann, Guest Director, Harpsichord

Delirio Amoroso captures the glory and verve of Handel’s youth in Rome – the compositions he might have heard and the music he came up with in response. The program features sonatas, concerto grossos, opera excerpts from Antiochus, Rosaura, Rodrigo, and a harpsichord solo performed by Alexander Weimann. Works by Stradella, Corelli, Gasparini, Perti, and the young Handel himself.

Weimann is one of the most sought-after ensemble directors, soloists, and chamber music partners of his generation. He has traveled the world as a member of the ensemble Tragicomedia; as a frequent guest of ensembles such as Les Boréades, Cantus Cölln, Freiburger Barockorchester, Tafelmusik, and the Gesualdo Consort; and as musical director of Les Voix Baroques and Le Nouvel Opéra. Weimann has led the Portland Baroque Orchestra in Handel’s Messiah, conducted the Pacific Baroque Orchestra on a tour of Canada and the USA, and performed Bach’s Harpsichord Concertos as soloist with Les Violons du Roy. Both the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra regularly invite him to play as soloist.