2025 Salish Sea Early Music Festival ~
Period Instrument chamber music from six centuries
around the Salish Sea ~ Please
sign our mailing
list for updated schedule announcements
(please specify preferred concert location)
~
Please see specific 2025 dates for each
concert location through links to the left ~
June
8-15, 2025:
—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:
July
9-11, 2025: — THE
18TH-CENTURY HARPSICHORD IN SPAIN
· 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 Seattle,
Vancouver and Tacoma]
July 12-20, 2025: — 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.
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
· 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
~
January
17-24, 2025: — THE
CANZONA
· Vicki Boeckman,
renaissance recorders
· Tina Chancey,
tenor & bass viol & renaissance
violin
· Jeffrey Cohan,
renaissance transverse flute
· 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.
February
21 - March 1. 2025: — 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."
March
7-17, 2025:
—
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.
May
1-8: — 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.
May
16-26: — 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.
•
•
•
ONLINE
PERFORMANCES • • • — To be
released one of
these days —
CANZONAS Trios,
Duos
and Solos Anna
Marsh
~ dulcian (renaissance bassoon)
John Lenti ~ theorbo
Jeffrey Cohan ~ renaissance flute
Yes,
still to come! ...an unusual and
extensive exploration of the
fabric of early 17th-century music
in Italy (mostly) through the
perspective of the
players of dulcian,
renaissance transverse flute, theorbo
and renaissance lute.
The
program includes a solo lute Fantasia
by Giovanni
Battista
Dalla Gostena (1540-1593),
a Canzona (1636) by Giovanni
Battista
Buonamente (c1595–1642), a
Sonata as well as Cantantibus
organis by Giovanni
Paolo Cima (c1570–1630)
from his Concerti Ecclesiastici
(Milan 1610), five wonderful
canzonas by Tarquinio
Merula (1594/5-1665) from
his Opus 12 (1637) and Opus 17
(1651), a Fantasia for
dulcian solo as well as divisions on
Vestiva e colli for flute
and dulcian, both published in 1638
by Bartolomé
de Selma y Salaverde
(~1595-1638), diminutions
byGirolamo
Dalla Casaon
Petit Jacquet after the
chanson by jean Courtois
for flute and lute, aSonata Concertante by Dario
Castello(1602-1631)
from 1631, and two duos for flute
and dulcian: Beaux yeux by
Jan
Pieterszoon Sweelinck
(1562-1621) and a setting of Le
rossignol plaisant & gratieux
by Didier
le blanc.
Fantasia
11 by Giovanni Bassano (1585)
January 11, 2021
Fantasia
3 (1585) by Giovanni Bassano
December 29, 2020
Please see
links in the left column above for specific dates
for each location. ~updated
May 22, 2025~ Suggested Donation for all
concerts:
$20 to $30
(a free will offering - everyone is most welcome)
• 18 and under FREE •
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Please sign our MAILING LIST (specify concert
location)
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 thanks to your support.
The
Salish
Sea Early Music Festival is proud to be
an affiliate organization of Early
Music America, which develops,
strengthens, and celebrates early music
and historically informed performance in
North America.
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
.
17th
Century
