BELLINGHAM
FIRST
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
·
1031
North Garden Street
All
concerts at 7:00 PM
Suggested
Donation:
$20 to $30
(a free will offering - everyone
welcome)
•
18
and under FREE •
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
|
2026 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 ~
~
All Fridays at 7:00 PM
★ download 2026 flyer here
~
Friday,
March
20, 2026
at 7:00
PM:
—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)
Innovative
renditions of renaissance
Psalms (~1620), Irish and
Scottish baroque (~1720) and
folk music as interpreted during
Beethoven's lifetime (~1820)
outlines this 100% new program
continuing Oleg and Jeffrey's
exploration of settings from
three centuries of popular and
folk music, performed on 5
transverse flutes and three
plucked instruments.
Two experiments in particular
are worth of mention. In the
early 17th century Flutist Jacob
Van Eyck and lutenist Nicolas
Vallet both wrote settings of
many of the Psalm tunes from the
Geneva Psalter of the mid-16th
century. Timofreyev and Cohan
juxtapose these in a manner that
sheds new light on early
17th-century improvisational
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.
LISTEN:
Oleg Timofeyev
and Jeffrey Cohan play Drouet's
God Save the Queen on
SoundCloud:
★
★ ★
|
Friday,
May
1, 2026
at 7:00
PM:
—TELEMANN
PARIS QUARTETS
· David Greenberg,
baroque violin
· Susie
Napper, viola da
gamba
· Elisabeth
Wright,
harpsichord
· Jeffrey
Cohan, baroque
flute
Six
quatuors
(1730):
Concerto
1 in G
Sonata
1 in A
Suite
1 in e
Nouveaux
quatuors en six suites
(1738):
2e.
Quatuor in A Minor
Telemann composed his 12
brilliant “Paris Quartets”
in Hamburg and then Paris in
response to a request in
1730 from the most famous
Parisian flute, violin and
cello virtuosi which
resulted in his most
significant journey away
from home during his
lifetime. This year we
present four new quartets,
to include a selection from
each of his four sets of
quartets in sonata, suite
and concerto format.
"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,
May
15, 2026
at 7:00
PM:
—BACH
& HANDEL
·
Maike Albrecht,
soprano
· Hans-Jürgen
Schnoor,
harpsichord
·
Susie Napper
(Montreal), viola da gamba
· Jeffrey Cohan,
baroque flute
Vocal masterworks to be
presented include 6 of
Handel's 9 exquisite
German Arias,
selected arias from cantatas
by Bach, his Italian
Concerto for solo
harpsichord, and flute
sonata by Handel and Bach's
cantata Ich habe genug.
|
Thursday,
May 21, 2026 in
Seattle only:
at 7:00 PM (not 7:30!) •
—GOLDBERG
VARIATIONS
· Hans-Jürgen
Schnoor,
harpsichord
Hans-Jürgen Schnoor, often
organist at the St. Marien
Kirche to which Bach walked
for three days to hear
Dietrich Buxtehude, has
performed the Goldberg
Variations more than 125
times, possibly more than
any other living
harpsichordist.
|
 Friday,
June
12, 2026
at 7:00
PM:
—JOHANN
SEBASTIAN BACH
· Irene
Roldàn, harpsichord
· Jeffrey Cohan,
baroque 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.
|
Friday,
June
26, 2026
at 7:00
PM:
—PARDESSUS DE
VIOLE, FLUTE & GUITAR
· Annalisa
Pappano, pardessus
de viol and treble viol
· William Simms,
baroque guitar and theorbo
· Jeffrey Cohan,
baroque flute
The
French royal court musical
establishment generated a vast amount
of music, to be represented by works
of Jean-Baptiste Lully, Élisabeth
Jacquet de La Guerre, Marin Marais,
Jacques Hotteterre and others.
★
★ ★
|
~
Earlier concerts this 2026 season
~
|
Friday,
January 23, 2026 at 7:00 PM:
 —
A LITTLE
CONCERT FOR LOUIS XIV
· Y Hsuan (Ethan) Lin,
baroque violin
· Vicki Gunn,
baroque viola
· Jeffrey Cohan,
baroque flute
· Anna Marsh,
baroque bassoon
André
Danican Philidor l'ainé, the
aging Louis XIV's long-time music
librarian, prepared the
king's favorite operas and ballets
alongside chamber music by Lully and
Philidor himself
for little evening concerts given before
his majesty, all reduced for a smaller
number of musicians who presented these
grand works in the intimate setting
greatly preferred during this period by
the king, at least a quarter of a
century after the death of the composer
of most of these works, Jean-Baptiste
Lully.
★
★ ★
|
|
Friday,
February 13, 2026 at 7:00
PM:
— The ITALIAN
and FRENCH PERSPECTIVE
· Susie Napper
(Montreal), viola da gamba
· Olena Zhukova
(Kyiv, Ukraine), harpsichord
· Mélisande
Corriveau (Montreal),
treble viol
· Jeffrey Cohan,
renaissance & baroque flutes
Olena Zhukova from Kyiv and Les Voix
humaines, the widely celebrated
prize-winning duo of viols from
Montreal join us for a program
illuminating a radically evolving
musical perspective through the 17th
century.
LISTEN:
Les Voix Humaines plays
|
 Friday,
February 20, 2026 at 7:00
PM:
— EUROPEAN TOUR
1690-1790
· Olena 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
Ukraine, France, Italy,
Scotland, Germany and Austria with music
by Berezofzkyj, Boismortier, Corelli,
Oswald, Mozart and Bach.
Olena Zhukova of Kyiv,
Ukraine, a leading harpsichordist
and a tireless ambassador for
early music in her country and
abroad, 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 for
harpsichord composed
in part for her
by today's Ukrainian composers, for
Columbia University’s Global
Center in Paris and its Institute
for Ideas and Imagination.
★ ★
★
|
|
In 1676, Thomas
Mace expresses our musical aspirations: "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."
Sloane
wrote in about 1794 that "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…"
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."
|
~
updated
March 12, 2026
~
Do you receive our email
announcements and flyers?!
Please sign our MAILING LIST (please specify Bellingham)
by sending your address and
any other comments to
salishseafestival@aol.com
~ thank you!
SSEMF
banner: detail from "The Last Time it Reached Zero"
by James
C. Holl.
SSEMF presents outstanding early chamber music
on period instruments thanks
to your support.
|
