2025 Bellingham Salish Sea Early Music Festival

Bellingham's Salish Sea Early Music Festival

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BELLINGHAM
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
· 1031 North Garden Street

First Presbyterian Church

All concerts at 7:00 PM
Suggested Donation:
$20 to $30
(a free will offering - everyone welcome)
• 18 and under FREE •
FPC stained glass

stined glass at 1st Presbyterian

SSEMF presents outstanding
early chamber music in Bellingham
thanks to your support.

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival is a 501(c)3 organization and all donations are fully tax deductible in accordance with the law. Your donations are welcomed at https://www.salishseafestival.org/donate .

✣ With special thanks ✣
to First Presbyterian Church

2025 Salish Sea Early Music Festival in Bellingham
~ Period Instrument chamber music from six centuries in Bellingham and around the Salish Sea ~

~ Presented in collaboration with First Presbyterian Church ~

~ Mostly Fridays except April 10, all at 7:00 PM ★ download flyer here ~

Friday, March 7, 2025 at 7:00 PM:

— FRENCH BAROQUE TRIO SONATAS

     with MUSICA ALTA RIPA
   · Anne Röhrig, violin
   · Bernward Lohr, harpsichord
   · Susie Napper, viola da gamba
   · Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute

French trio sonatas and quartets spanning more than 60 years, through the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis V, alongside a "Paris Quartet" by Georg Philipp Telemann, written for Telemann's visit to Paris in 1738.

Marin Marais (1656 – 1728)

— Trio C major (1682)
Jean-Baptiste Quentin, the young (before 1690 – ca. 1742)

— Trio in G minor Opus 8 No. 1 (after 1729)
Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (1705 – 1770)

— Trio Sonata No. 3 in D Minor (1743)
Jean-Marie Leclair l'aîné (1697 – 1764)

— Violin Sonata in A Minor
Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689 – 1755)

— Trio Sonata Opus 37 No. 2 in e minor (1732)

MUSICA ALTA RIPA
Harpsichordist BERNWARD LOHR is director of Hanover's Musica Alta Ripa, one of Germany's most active and extensively recorded period instrument ensembles. Baroque violinist ANNE RÖHRIG, leads the Hannoversche Hofkapelle (the "Hanover Court Orchestra"), another of the premier baroque orchestras that contributes to the vibrant early music scene in Hannover and Northern Germany. “Hannover” originally evolved from "Hohes Ufer", meaning "high riverbank" or "Alta Ripa" in Latin. Bernward Lohr and Anne Röhrig are professors at music conservatories in both Hannover and Nuremburg, Germany. Their more than 30 recordings have garnered many of the most important awards in Europe for recordings including the Diapason Dòr, the Cannes Classical Award, the German Recording Critics' Prize, and several times the coveted Echo Klassik Award. Both were awarded the 2002 Music Award of Lower Saxony.

Late March: — HARPSICHORD MYSTERY

(only in Seattle, Vancouver and Tacoma - please see those pages on our site)

· Elena Zhukova, harpsichord
The Ukrainian harpsichordist deciphers mysterious and elusive rarities as well as standards for solo harpsichord by Byrd, Couperin, Rameau and Scarlatti alongside Ukrainian gems including a harpsichord sonata by Dmitry Bortnyansky. [only in certain locations]

Thursday, April 10 at 7:00 PM: — EUROPEAN TOUR 1690-1790

   · Elena Zhukova, harpsichord
   · Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute
          An excursion through a century of transformation and diversity by decade and culture within the baroque and classical periods, through the perspective of composers for harpsichord and flute from France, Italy, Scotland, Germany and Ukraine.

Friday, May 2 at 7:00 PM: — The MUSIQUE DE LA CHAMBRE of LOUIS XIV
   · Caroline Nicolas, viola da gamba
   · William Simms, theorbo & baroque guitar
   · Jeffrey Cohan, baroque and renaissance flutes
          The SUn King's court musical establishment is to be represented by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Marin Marais, Jacques Hotteterre, etc., including music designated for the king's bedtime, evening concerts and banquets, with our special guests from New York and Baltimore.

Friday, May 23 at 7 PM: — CONCERTI from the COURT of FREDERICK THE GREAT
   · David Schrader, harpsichord
   · Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute
   · Elizabeth Phelps, baroque violin
   · Courtney Kuroda, baroque violin
   · Lindsey Strand-Polyak, baroque viola
          A completely new assortment of concerti for harpsichord and flute from the illustrious members of the musical establishment of flutist Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, including Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Joachim Quantz, and Frederick himself.

Friday, June 6 at 7:00 PM: — BEETHOVEN'S FLUTE, VIOLA & GUITAR
   · Elizabeth Blumenstock, viola
   · Oleg TImofeyev, 7-string guitar (Moscow, 1820)
   · Jeffrey Cohan, 8-keyed flute (London, 1820)
          Repertoire abounds for this popular ensemble of guitar, viola and flute during Beethoven's time. With outstanding violinist and violist Elizabeth Blumenstock.

Late July: — THE 18TH-CENTURY HARPSICHORD IN SPAIN

(Seattle, Vancouver and Tacoma only - please see those pages on our site)
· Irene Roldàn, harpsichord
Step into the heart of 18th-century Iberia, where the vibrant court of Madrid stood as a focal point for the flourishing of the rich keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti, Sebastian de Albero, Jose de Nebra, and the Portuguese Carlos Seixas. [only in certain locations]

Friday, July 18 at 7:00 PM: — JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
   · Irene Roldàn, harpsichord
   · Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute
          Spanish harpsichordist Irene Roldàn from Basel and Jeffrey interpret Bach's phenomenal music for flute and harpsichord.

~ Earlier concerts this 2025 season ~

Friday, January 17, 2025 at 7:00 PM: — THE CANZONA
   · Vicki Boeckman, renaissance recorders
   · Tina Chancey, tenor viol
   · Jeffrey Cohan, renaissance transverse flutes
   · Anna Marsh, dulcian (renaissance bassoon)
    Featuring special guest renaissance specialist and innovative improviser Tina Chancey from Hesperus in Washington, DC, this in-depth exploration of the Italian four-part canzona, which blossomed in print from 1577 through the mid 1600’s, traces its development from 1533, when commercial music printing was in its infancy in Europe, through 1636 at which point more “baroque” stylistic forms such as the sonata and the suite had begun to emerged. Canzonas by Florentino Maschera (1582), Floriano Canale (1600), Giovanni Dominico Rognoni Taegio (1605), Antonio Troilo (1606), Giovanni Gabrieli (1608), Girolamo Frescobaldi (1608), Giovanni Antonio Cangiasi (1614), Giacomo Biumi (1624), Nicolo Corradini (1624), Giovanni Buonamente (1636) and others are to be included in the program along with examples of the earlier French and Flemish songs of the early 1500's that inspired them, including well known chansons published specifically for instrumentalists in 1533, 1577 and 1588, among them Clement Jannequin’s “Song of the Birds”. Renaissance winds of three distinct families along with the fretted viols provide an exciting blend and a distinct character to each of the four intertwining musical lines.

Friday, February 21 at 7:00 PM: — THE CHACONNE with LES VOIX HUMAINES

   · Susie Napper, viola da gamba & treble viol
   · Mélisande Corriveau, viola da gamba & pardessus de viol
   · Elisabeth Wright, harpsichord
   · Jeffrey Cohan, baroque and renaissance flutes

Les Voix humaines, the widely celebrated prize-winning duo of viols from Montreal joins us for a program demonstrating the chaconne at it's most poignant, transporting three important works by Johann Sebastian Bach to an entirely new level through their own transcriptions, and presenting other remarkable but rarely heard repertoire for two viola da gambas, pardessus de viol, flute and harpsichord.

The hypnotic French chaconne that developed during the reign of Louis XIV brings the listener from one emotional realm to the next in a regular procession of episodes that transition gently in an emotional direction or leap suddenly with emotion and stark contrast, now uplifting or sad, majestic or introspective, hopeful or questioning. The pulse may feel broader, then more angular, then running with abandon or pregnant with poise, always cleverly evolving in the presentation of a musical story.

Bach and Telemann succeed in bringing this chaconne to a whole new level, as we'll experience with "Les Voix Humaines" in their very own transcription of Bach's Chaconne in D Minor for 2 viola da gambas, originally for solo violin, and in the chaconne entitled Modéré from Telemann's Paris Quartet No. 12 in E Minor for flute, pardessus de viole, viola da gamba and harpischord. Two outstanding quartets for two viola da gambas, flute and harpsichord celebrating this unusual combination of instruments will be heard alongside two additional transcriptions: for flute, pardessus de viol and harpsichord of Bach's Organ Trio Sonata in D Minor, and for solo harpsichord of the Allemande from Bach's D Major Suite No. 6 for solo cello.

From the standpoint of the Salish Sea Early Music Festival and as Tobias Hume asserted in 1605, "Now to use a modest shortness, and a brief expression of my self to all noble spirits": Les Voix Humaines is simply phenomenal!

LISTEN: Les Voix Humaines plays Sieur de Sainte-Colombe's Les Pleurs - Chaconne Le rapporté

In 1676, Thomas Mace accurately expressed their sentiments: "I have been more Sensibly, Fervently, and Zealously Captivated, and drawn into Divine Raptures, and Contemplations, by Those Unexpressible Rhetorical, Uncontroulable Perswasions, and Instructions of Musicks Divine Language."

A perfect description of their vision of music making, Sloane wrote c.1794: "There must be an Order and just Proportion, Intricacy with Simplicity in the Component parts, Variety in the Mass, and Light and Shadow in the whole, so as to produce the varied sensations of gaiety and melancholy, of wildness and even surprise and wonder…"

And as Thomas Mace says in 1676: "…When we come to be Masters… we can command all manner of Time, at our own Pleasures; we Then take Liberty for Humour and good Adornment-sake, to Break Time; sometimes Faster, sometimes Slower, as we perceive, the Nature of the Thing Requires, which…adds much Grace and Luster to the Performance."

~ Last Season ~

✣ ✣ ✣ Friday, JANUARY 19, 2024 at First Presbyterian in Bellingham ✣ ✣ ✣

THREE CENTURIES:

GUITAR, THEORBO & FLUTE

Michael Freimuth

~ renaissance guitar & theorbo ~

Jeffrey Cohan

~ renaissance & baroque flutes ~

16th Century

Diego Ortiz • William Byrd

Giovanni Bassano

Girolamo Dalla Casa

17th Century

Giovanni Paulo Cima

Girolamo Frescobaldi

Giovanni Battista Fontana

Giovanni Battista Buonamenti

Bartolomé de Selma y Salaverde

18th Century

Arcangelo Corelli • André Chéron

Robert de Visée

Join us for the opening 2024 Salish Sea Early Music Festival and an unusual and expansive journey through the music for guitar, lute and flute of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, including elaborate jazzed-up versions of well known songs of the time, published by the incredible wind instrument virtuosi of the late 16th century, along with canzonas, sonatas and suites from Spain, Italy, England and France. The instruments include the renaissance guitar, which is considerably smaller and more mellow-toned than its modern descendant, theorbo (an extremely long-necked lute), the one-piece cylindrical renaissance flute along with the bass renaissance flute, and the one-keyed baroque flute.

✣ ✣ ✣ Friday, February 16, 2024 at 7:00 pm in Bellingham ✣ ✣ ✣

SIMPHONIE NOUVELLE:

LOUIS XIV & J.S. BACH

Stephen Stubbs

~ baroque guitar ~

Susie Napper

~ viola da gamba ~

Jeffrey Cohan

~ baroque flute ~

guitarists

Diego Francesco Corbetta (1615-1681)
Robert De Visée (c.1655-1733)
viola da gambists

Monsieur de Sainte Colombe (c.1640-c.1700)
Marin Marais (1656-1728)
Jacques Morel (c.1680-c.1740)
flutist

Michel de la Barre (c.1675-1745)
composers

Élisabeth Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729)
François Couperin (1668-1733)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Louis XIV gathered the finest musicians of France at his court in Versailles and this program features many of the late 17th and early 18th-century guitarists, viola da gambists, flutists and other composers associated with his illustrious musical establishment, alongside the Sonata in E Minor, BWV 1034 of Johann Sebastian Bach.

✣ ✣ ✣ Friday, March 1, 2024 at 7:00 pm in Bellingham ✣ ✣ ✣ Renaissance flute and lute

GEORG PHILIPP TELEMANN:

PARIS QUARTETS

David Greenberg

~ baroque violin ~

Elisabeth Wright

~ harpsichord ~

Susie Napper

~ viola da gamba ~

Jeffrey Cohan

~ baroque flute ~

Quadri a violino, flauto traversiere, viola da gamba

o violoncello, e fondamento (1730):

Concerto II in D Major

Sonata II in G Minor

Nouveaux quatuors en six suites (1738):

Premier Quatuor in D Major
4e. Quatuor in B Minor

Having been invited by several of the most prominent French musicians to visit Paris, Telemann composed and published the first set of his remarkable "Paris Quartets" in 1730, and left Hamburg for Paris seven years later, where all 12 of the quartets were performed, almost surely with Teleman himself on the harpsichord. The second set of quartets was published in Paris during this visit in 1738. Two years later Telemann related the following:

"The admirable performances of these quartets by Messrs Blavet (transverse flute), Guignon (violin), the younger Forcroy [i.e. Forqueray] (viola da gamba) and Edouard (cello) would be worth describing were it possible for words to be found to do them justice. In short, they won the attention of the ears of the court and the town, and procured for me in a very little time an almost universal renown and increased esteem."

✣ ✣ ✣ Friday, March 22, 2024 at 7:00 PM in Bellingham ✣ ✣ ✣ Haydn

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN

TRIOS

Jeffrey Cohan

~ 8-keyed flute ~

Lindsey Strand-Polyak

~ baroque violin ~

Martin Bonham

~ baroque cello ~

Franz Joseph Haydn

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Franz Anton Hoffmeister

François Devienne

As the most celebrated composer in all of Europe for much of his career, Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) was Mozart’s mentor and friend as well as Beethoven’s tutor. The program will include three trios for flute, violin and cello by Haydn, selections from a 1795 arrangement for these instruments of Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute”, and a trio by Franz Anton Hoffmeister, a friend of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven who published music by all three.

✣ ✣ ✣ Friday, April 12, 2024 at 7:00 PM ✣ ✣ ✣

Myers">

SPRINGTIME BAROQUE:

AIRS for SPRING

Arwen Myers

~ soprano ~

Elisabeth Wright

~ harpsichord ~

Jeffrey Cohan

~ baroque flute ~

Johann Sebastin Bach

Seele, deine Spätzereien

(from the Easter Oratorio)

Louis-Nicolas Clérambault

Orphée

(Cantata)

George Frideric Handel

Singe, Seele & Flammende Rose

(from 9 German Arias)

Toussaint Bordet

Recueil D'Airs Avec Accompagnement de Flute

(selections)

Francois Couperin

Les Fauvétes Plaintives & La Linote-éfarouchée

(harpsichord solo)

✣ ✣ ✣ Friday, May 3, 2024 at 7:00 PM in Bellingham ✣ ✣ ✣ Rombouts The Concert 1620

RENAISSANCE PSALMS,

IRISH BAROQUE & FOLK

Oleg TImofeyev

renaissance lute, English guitar

& 7-string guitar (1820)

Jeffrey Cohan

~ renaissance & baroque flutes

& 8-keyed flute (1820)

17th Century

Nicolas Vallet

Jacob Van Eyck

Girolamo Dalla Casa

18th Century

James Oswald

Francesco Barsanti

Turlough O'Carolan

19th Century

Mauro Giuliani

Louis Drouet

Charles Nicholson

This program, in three parts, opens with settings of Psalms and variations on folk melodies by early 17th-century flutist Jacob Van Eyck, lutenist Nicolas Vallet and others performed on renaissance descant, tenor and bass transverse flutes and lute. Then, baroque flute and the rare but once quite popular wire-strung English Guitar of the 18th century is to be heard performing the folk tunes of Scotland and Ireland as interpreted and varied by the early 18th-century composers Francesco Barsanti, Turlough O'Carolan, James Oswald and others. Finally, an Eastern European 7-string guitar made in 1820 in Russia alongside an eight-keyed flute made in London in the same year bring to life variations on popular tunes by Mauro Giuliani, Louis Drouet, Charles Nicholson and other virtuoso flutists and guitarists of Beethoven’s day.

✣ ✣ ✣ Friday, May 24, 2024 at 7 PM in Bellingham ✣ ✣ ✣ Renaissance flute and lute

BAROQUE CONCERTI

Carrie Krause

~ baroque violin ~

Jonathan Oddie

~ harpsichord ~

Jeffrey Cohan

~ baroque flute ~
Elizabeth Phelps & Courtney Kuroda

~ baroque violin ~

Victoria Gunn

~ baroque viola ~

Martin Bonham

~ baroque cello ~

JACQUES AUBERT

Concerto in D Major, Opus 26 No. 3

ANTONIO VIVALDI

Flute Concerto "La Notte", Opus 10 No. 2

CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH

Flute Concerti in D Minor, Wq 22a

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Triple Concerto in A Minor for Harpsichord, Violin and Flute, BWV 1044

✣ ✣ ✣ Thursday, July 11, 2024 at 7:00 PM in Bellingham ✣ ✣ ✣

(originally scheduled for Friday July 5)

Johann Sebastian

BACH

Faythe Vollrath

~ harpsichord ~

Jeffrey Cohan

~ baroque flute ~

Harpsichordist Faythe Vollrath from Sacramento, CA will join baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan for this mostly-Bach extravaganza in the eighth and final 2024 Salish Sea Early Music Festival performance demonstrating the unparalleled mystery and emotional intensity of Bach’s compositional abilities, featuring transcriptions of his works originally for viola da gamba and another for violin, both with obbligato (or fully written-out) harpsichord in addition to sonatas originally written for flute by Bach both with continuo (a bass line with numbers denoting harmonies from which the harpsichordist improvises) and with obbligato harpsichord. Faythe Vollrath will play variations for solo harpsichord by Johann Adam Reinken (1643-1722) on the popular German folk tune “Schweiget mir von Weibernehmen” (‘shush, no more talk about womanizing”). Reinken was greatly admired by Bach, who made arrangements of several of his works.

~ updated March 5, 2025 ~
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SSEMF banner: detail from "The Last Time it Reached Zero" by James C. Holl.
baroque flute

SSEMF presents outstanding early chamber music
on period instruments thanks to your support.