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 at 7:00 PM ★ download updated flyer here ~

Friday, July 18, 2025 at 7:00 PM:

— JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH & DOMENICO SCARLATTI
· Irene Roldàn, harpsichord

· Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute
Irene Roldàn and Jeffrey interpret Bach's phenomenal music for flute and harpsichord alongside works by Domenico Scarlatti including works both for solo harpsichord and with flute.

Award-winning harpsichordist Irene Roldán (www.ireneroldan.com) was born in southern Spain in 1997. Described by the press as one of the most prominent Spanish harpsichordists on the international scene (ABC Sevilla), Irene currently lives and works in Basel, Switzerland. She gained international recognition in 2021, when she won first prize, never previously awarded in this competition, as well as the audience prize at the III. International Harpsichord Competition «Città di Milano». In the same year, her ensemble Flor Galante secured the first prize at the IV. International Bach Competition in Berlin. One year later, Irene was honored with the prestigious Bach Prize and an additional special award at the XXXIII. International Bach Competition held in Leipzig, Germany.

Irene Roldàn’s participation in these performances has been made possible with help from the Honorary Consulate of Spain in Seattle and from to the Programme for the Internationalisation of Spanish Culture (PICE) of Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), which seeks to promote Spanish culture through the inclusion of Spanish artists and creators residing in Spain in the programming of cultural events outside of Spain.

~ 2026 next season ~

UKRAINE

Olena Zhukova

It is a great honor to feature Ukrainian harpsichordist Olena Zhukova of Kyiv, Ukraine, a leading harpsichordist and a tireless ambassador of early music in her country and abroad during this difficult period. She has performed since the outbreak of full-scale war in prominent performances sponsored by distinguished institutions all around Ukraine, Poland, Austria, France, Switzerland and Czech Republic for international festivals and in collaboration with major artists, orchestras and opera productions. Ms. Zhukova is also an accomplished scholar who published and presented more than 20 articles, while devoting herself to her harpsichord class and chamber music students as Associate Professor at both the National Music Academy of Ukraine and the Gliére Academy of Music (Kiev), where she founded the harpsichord class. Recent engagements during the past few months alone include Bach's Goldberg Variations in the prestigious Organ Hall in Lviv, Ukraine; the first major classical performance for the public in Chernihiv, Ukraine since the outbreak of war entitled French Music in Times of War and sponsored by the Ambassador of France, in a newly rebuilt performance hall in Chernihiv that had previously been extensively damaged by a Russian strike at the beginning of the conflict; and an involved program, consisting exclusively of new music in part composed for her by today's Ukrainian composers, for Columbia University’s Global Center in Paris and its Institute for Ideas and Imagination.

Ms. Zhukova will appear in the following two programs:

Dates to be announced: — HARPSICHORD MYSTERY

(Seattle, Vancouver and Tacoma only)

· 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 Seattle, Vancouver and Tacoma]

Dates to be announced: — 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.

~ 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, 2025 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."

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.

Friday, May 2 at 7:00 PM: — The MUSIQUE DE LA CHAMBRE of LOUIS XIV
· Caroline Nicolas, viola da gamba
· William Simms, baroque guitar
· Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute

The MUSIQUE DE LA CHAMBRE of LOUIS XIV features music by prominent soloists, all composers, who frequently played for Louis XIV, including the king’s guitar instructor Robert De Visée and his Italian predecessor Francesco Corbetta, along with a favorite viola da gambist at the court, Marin Marais and his teacher Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, as well as Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, a young harpsichordist and one of the few famous female musicians of her time whose playing and compositions Louis deeply admired and subsidized.

This program stands apart in a variety of ways. Jeffrey Cohan discovered the earliest known French solo specifically for the transverse flute by the king’s court music librarian André Danican Philidor L'Aisné in a relatively unknown and as yet unpublished manuscript which was prepared in 1695 by Philidor himself as a present from Louis XIV for the Duke of Bavaria. Marin Marais asserted that his music for viola da gamba might be played on the transverse flute, as is to be realized in a Suite from his first book of pieces for viola da gamba. Similarly a sonata by Jacquet de La Guerre assumes new resonance in our realization for transverse flute, gamba and guitar. Caroline Nicolas and William Simms will perform solos for viola da gamba and guitar by De Visée, Corbetta and Sainte-Colombe.

The French musical perspective emulated reason and moderation, with sensory perception serving comprehension. French musicians aspired to thrill the senses via the intellect, in a continual search for grace and elegance. Dance was viewed as the consummate expression of the mastery of body and mind and the epitome of aristocratic art, as evidenced by Louis XIV's daily dance lessons for 20 years alongside frequent guitar lessons. Every French court and church musician reflected musically their determination to depict refinement and true sentiments, while dispensing with excessive turbulence and contrast. All of this contrasted greatly with the Italian focus on the direct expression of emotions via their virtuoso and flamboyant approach, which was indeed admired in some circles in France.

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
   · Christine Moran, baroque viola
   · Susie Napper, baroque cello

A concerto by Frederick II, the monarch of Prussia from 1740, will be included alongside the Suite in B Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, whose visit to the king's court in 1747 is legendary, and concerti by Frederick's keyboardist Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach for both harpsichord and flute.

Friday, June 13 (not June 6), 2025 at 7:00 PM Rombouts The Concert 1620

—FOLK SONG FROM THREE CENTURIES II

Renaissance Psalms, Scottish Baroque & Folk

· Oleg Timofeyev, renaissance lute, English guitar & 7-string guitar (1820)
· Jeffrey Cohan, renaissance, baroque & 8-keyed flutes (London, 1820)
Renaissance Psalms (~1620), Irish and Scottish baroque (~1720) and folk music as interpreted during Beethoven's lifetime (~1820) in part II, a 100% new program of innovative renditions of settings from three centuries based on popular and folk music, performed on 5 transverse flutes and three plucked instruments.

In the early 17th century Flutist Jacob Van Eyck and lutenist Nicolas Vallet both wrote settings of and variations on many of the Psalm tunes from the Geneva Psalter of the mid-16th century that were widely sung in churches 100 years later. These are juxtaposed simultaneously in a manner that sheds new light on early 17th-century practice.

James Oswald's "Airs for the Seasons" consists of four collections, one for each season, of about 24 airs or multi-movement suites, each dedicated to a particular flower of the season and radiating the charming character of the folk melodies of Oswald's native Scotland. The wire strung English guitar, so rarely to be heard today, emerged around this time as one of the most prominent instruments of home life in England, and Oswald's airs beautifully suit Oleg's instrument made in 1767 alongside the one-keyed baroque flute. Likewise, settings of the popular tunes written specifically for the English guitar by Scotsman Robert Bremner and others are to be heard, following settings from several decades earlier of Irish and Scottish popular melodies by Burk Thumoth and Francesco Barsanti on baroque flute and lute.

Finally, an Eastern European 7-string guitar made in 1820 in Russia and an eight-keyed flute made in London in the same year resonate to variations on popular tunes by Englishman Charles Nicholson, American Joseph Kennedy, Austrian Anton Diabelli and other virtuoso flutists and guitarists of Beethoven’s day.

LISTEN: Oleg Timofeyev and Jeffrey Cohan play Drouet's God Save the Queen on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/simphonie-nouvelle/drouets-god-save-the-queen-for

17th Century

Nicolas Vallet

Jacob Van Eyck

18th Century

James Oswald

Francesco Barsanti

Turlough O'Carolan

19th Century

Anton Diabelli

I.T. Norton

~ updated June 21, 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.