Night music

keyboard conversations
SEPTEMber 22nd • 3pm

Featuring guest forte pianist Sylvia Berry, this program explores Mozart’s orchestral music in arrangements sanctioned by himself or fashioned by his student Hummel. On this intimate scale, the works’ conversational, sociable nature is especially apparent. We pair Mozart overture & concerto with one of Carl Philipp Emanuel’s last compositions, a quartet with a similarly conversational idiom that suggests his awareness of musical developments in Vienna.

PURCHASE TICKETS

belladonna

the art of imitation
october 27th • 3pm

Join Belladonna in a program entitled The Art of Imitation, a musical tour from Renaissance to high baroque, featuring the composers Palestrina, De Selma, Telemann, Goldberg and Bach.

PURCHASE TICKETS

the publick pleasure

liberté, égalité, fraternité
music of France & St Domingue in 18th century Philadelphia
November 24th • 3pm

In the 1780’s and 90’s Philadelphia teemed with French boarding houses, French schools, French dancing masters, the French language, and French cuisine. French music was a regular part of public concert offerings. During the slave rebellion in St Domingue (colonial Haiti) Philadelphia was flooded with refugees (both colonists and enslaved & free persons of color), including musicians and dancers. In this concert The Publick Pleasure will explore the French footprint in Philadelphia, including original research and portions of a public concert performed in Philadelphia during the 1790’s by a “gens de couleur” (free person of color) who had been principal violinist in the colonial opera theaters of St Domingue. With music of Pleyel, P. Couperin, Davaux, Pelissier, Viotti, and the Chevalier de St. Georges.

PURCHASE TICKETS

the sylvan consort

Lawes and Order!
january 26th • 3pm

Experimentation, new forms, pushing boundaries of instrumental virtuosity and vocal expression - these are the hallmarks of 17th century music throughout Europe. While we might consider English consort music to be the exception, with its orderly contrapuntal conversations and serene flow of ideas, in fact the old rules were constantly stretched and often broken. William Lawes, the admired and beloved composer who died early, losing his life to a stray bullet during the lawless period of the English Civil War, extended those rules to the furthest limits of both harmony and technique. The Sylvan Viols will play his challenging and sublime music in the context of others who experimented in their own unique ways.

PURCHASE TICKETS

the franklin quartet

we women
february 23rd • 3pm

The prejudice about womens’ creative abilities in the 18th and 19th centuries was largely a direct result of writings of leading European political/philosophical figures such as Jean Jaques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. In 1758 Rousseau wrote:

“Women in general possess no artistic sensibility . . . nor genius. They can acquire a knowledge . . . of anything through hard work. But the celestial fire that emblazons and ignites the soul, the inspiration that consumes and devours . . . these sublime ecstasies that reside in the depths of the heart are always lacking in women’s writings. These creations are as cold and pretty as women”.

Being a girl prodigy in that time, to say the least, was not easy. While some girls would grow up to perform for family and friends, it was not considered appropriate for them to pursue music academically or professionally.

In “We Women” Franklin Quartet brings forward poet Edith Södergran and composers Fanny Hensel, Emilie Mayer, Amanda Maier-Röntgen, and Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen. These five remarkable women, all European but hailing from countries as diverse as Finland, Sweden, Germany and Italy, refused to become ornaments. In the face of daunting odds and rigid societal norms, they fought for their art and the root of their being for their entire lives. Join us in reveling in their breathtaking genius.

PURCHASE TICKETS

filament

rococo Dialogues
march 23rd • 3pm

In Rococo Dialogues, Filament pays homage to 18th century invention with a new program celebrating works for harpsichord with strings. In this program full of color, Filament presents trios of Haydn alongside accompanied keyboard sonatas of Luigi Boccherini, dedicated to Madame Anne Louise Brillon de Joüy, the famous musician and correspondent of Benjamin Franklin. Lesser known gems, adapted and arranged by the ensemble, will complement this program full of discovery, linking the world of Enlightenment era salons to our own. We hope you join us to hear this exciting young ensemble called by Fanfare “artistically satisfying on all levels.”

PURCHASE TICKETS

la bernardinia

italo-britannici: Italian expats in london of the early 18th century
april 27th • 3pm

Italian Sonatas meet French Suites, English Grounds and Scotch Humour 

Compositions by Barsanti, Matteis, Draghi, and Cervetto

Italo-Britannici is a musical portrait of Italian-born instrumentalist-composers who emigrated to London in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Attracted by the manifold opportunities the vibrant metropolis on the Thames had to offer, they wrote music that reflected England's - and especially London's - ever-changing musical tastes. Their music also revealed their drive to become an integral part of local culture and to contribute to its shaping. Several pieces selected for this program display the composers' intimate knowledge of the Italian style.  Another is written in the sophisticated style of the French Baroque. And others delve into the joyous possibilities of the theme and variation form of the ever-popular English Ground, Scotch humour included. Given the rich mix of musical traditions at play here, how could it be otherwise?

PURCHASE TICKETS

duo silvio

lute duets by bach and weiss
JUNE 1st at 3pm

Lutenists Richard Stone and Cameron Welke perform duets by two friends from baroque Saxony: Silvius Leopold Weiss and Johann Sebastian Bach. The program includes revelatory duets by Weiss, reimaginings of Bach works, and a suite that resulted from a weekend of improv by the two at Bach's home in Leipzig.

PURCHASE TICKETS