Festival Concert Series

Part of the Amherst Early Music Festival, July 2-16, 2023 on the campus of Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA.

All concerts are at 7:30 pm, except the opera, which begins at 8 pm.
All concerts are free for the public! Masks for audience members may be required.

Baroque Academy Faculty Concert
Thursday, July 6

Featuring Baroque Academy Faculty: Saskia Coolen recorder, Hsuan-Wen Chen harpsichord, Arthur Haas harpsichord,  Peter Sykes harpsichord, Ingrid Matthews violin, Phoebe Carrai cello, Sarah Cunningham viol, Heather Miller Lardin double bass, Gwyn Roberts recorder & flute, Meg Owens oboe, and Wouter Verschuren bassoon & dulcian

Baroque Opera: L'Erismena by Francesco Cavalli
Friday, July 7

Co-directed by Julianne Baird and Grant Herreid, with Lawrence Rosenwald, texts, and Dorothy Olsson, historical dance. English translation by Robert Bargrave

Solo singer from a production of Purcell's The Fairy Queen

L’Erismena is one of the best of Cavalli’s 40 operas. It is full of lilting and mellifluous melodies and hilarious plot twists and mistaken identities. Almost every character is paired at the end of the Opera with a different person than the one they began with. Since sung opera was new in late 17th c England, our production will be set in a public theater c. 1675-80, such as described by Samuel Pepys in his diaries. An actor playing Bargrave will explain various aspects of the confusing plot, but also address certain modern updates, like the addition of a French dance troupe to perform chaconnes and other dances, the new-fangled oboe and bassoon, and his commissioning of new instrumental music from 'young Henry Purcell.'

 

Faculty Concert: Tapestry of Early Music I
Saturday, July 8

A variety show of early music through the ages, performed by wonderful AEM faculty using many different instruments and voices. Medieval love songs, Renaissance consort music, high Baroque sonatas, and fantasies that will delight and inspire! Composers may include John Dunstable, William Byrd, Henry Purcell, and G.F. Handel.

 

New World Recorders

Concert New World Recorders
Tuesday, July 11

A Beginning, a Middle, and an End

Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro. Ouverture, Suite, and Chaconne. Hello, I Love You, and Goodbye. The arc of a piece can take many forms that tie up the music in a satisfying and shapely bow. New World Recorders plays musical narratives by Dufay, Isaac, Locke, Purcell, Marcello, Schumann, Reger, Anonymous and more.
Gwyn Roberts, Priscilla Herreid, Rainer Beckmann, Sarah Shodja

 

 

Detail of a broken consort from a portrait of Sir Henry Unton

Concert: Lute Society of America & New London Assembly
Thursday, July 13

A Banquet of Music and Dance: Mixed consort music and English country dance

Directed by Jason Priset, Brad Foster, and Cécile Laye
With Emily Eagen, soprano, and Michael Barrett, tenor
A two-part program with Instrumental music played on lute, bandorra, cittern, bass viol, violin, and bass flute, and additional pieces for soprano and tenor voice. A group of English country dancers will perform 17th century dances accompanied by violins and piano.

 

Choral Workshop Concert: Welcome to All the Pleasures, Music of Purcell & Handel
Friday, July 14

The Festival's Choral Workshop, directed by Kent Tritle, perform
Welcome to all the Pleasures from Ode to St. Cecilia's Day by Henry Purcell
Funeral Sentences by Henry Purcell
Chandos Anthem: My Song Shall be Always by G. F. Handel
with oboe, string ensemble, and organ

 

Faculty Concert: Tapestry of Early Music II
Saturday, July 15

A variety show of early music through the ages, performed by wonderful AEM faculty using many different instruments and voices. Medieval love songs, Renaissance consort music, high Baroque sonatas, and fantasies that will delight and inspire! Composers may include John Dunstable, William Byrd, Henry Purcell, and G.F. Handel.