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✣
With special thanks
✣ to
Fir-Conway Lutheran Church
2025 Salish Sea Early Music Festival in the
Skagit Valley ~
Period Instrument chamber music from six centuries
in the Skagit Valley and around the Salish Sea ~
~ Presented in
collaboration with Fir-Conway Lutheran Church ~
~
All concerts at 7:00 PM
★ download updated
flyer here ~
Tuesday,
July 15, 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
~
Tuesday,
January 21, 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.
Tuesday,
February 25, 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!
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."
Tuesday,
March 11,
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" written by
Georg Philipp Telemann for
his 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.
Sunday
afternoon, June 15,
2025 at 4:00 PM
(not
June 4 as originally
scheduled)
—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)
This
Fathers' Day
performance of folk and
popular music from three
centuries will include innovative
renditions of
Renaissance Psalms
(~1620), Irish and
Scottish baroque (~1720)
and folk music as
interpreted during
Beethoven's lifetime
(~1820), performed on 5
transverse flutes, two
guitars and lute.
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:
Fantasia
11 by Giovanni Bassano (1585)
January 11, 2021
~ updated
June 19, 2025
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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
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17th
Century
