~
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
2026 infofor
each location throughlinks to
the left ~
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.
★
★ ★
~
Bach &
Handel ~
•
Tuesday
early evening, May
5
on Orcas
Island
at 5:00 PM •
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.
★
★ ★
•
Thursday,
May
21
in Seattle
only at 7:00
PM (not 7:30!)
•
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.
★
★ ★
~
Roldan &
Cohan: Bach
~
• Saturday
noon-thirty, June 6
in Friday
Harbor at 12:30 PM
•
•
Saturday,
June
6
on Lopez
Island at
6:00 PM (not 6:30!) •
•
Sunday
afternoon, June
7
in Port
Townsend
at 2:00 PM• • Sunday
evening, June
7 onWhidbey
Island(Freeland)
at
7:30 PM (not 7:00!) •
•
Monday
noon, June
8
on Vashon
Island
at 12:00 noon
•
•
Monday
evening, June
8
in Tacoma
at 7:00 PM• •
Tuesday
evening, June
9
in Vancouver
at 7:00 PM •
•
Wednesday
early evening, June
10
on Orcas
Island
at 5:00 PM •
•
Thursday,
June
11
in Seattle
at 7:00 PM (not
7:30!) •
•
Wednesday,
June
17
in the Skagit
Valley(Mount
Vernon) at
7:00 PM •
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.
June
25-July 2, 2026:
—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.
★
★ ★
~
The French
Perspective ~
•
Thursday
evening, June
25
in Vancouver
at 7:00 PM •
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.
★
★ ★
~
Little Concert
for Louis ~
•
Monday
noon, January
19 on Vashon
Island
at 12:00 noon •
• Monday
evening, January 19 in Tacoma
at 7:00 PM•
•
Tuesday
evening, January
20
in Vancouver
at 7:00 PM •
•
Wednesday,
January
21
in the Skagit
Valley(Mount
Vernon) at 7:00
PM •
•
Thursday, January
22
in Seattle
at 7:00 PM (not 7:30!) •
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.
★
★ ★
~
Italy and
France ~
•
Monday
evening, February
9
onWhidbey
Island(Coupeville)
at
7:00 PM (not
7:30!) • •
Tuesday
early evening, February
10
on Orcas
Island at
5:00 PM •
•
Wednesday
evening, February
11
in the Skagit
Valley(Mount
Vernon) at
7:00 PM •
•
Thursday,
February
12
in Seattle
at 7:00 PM (not 7:30!) •
— 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.
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:
•
Tuesday
evening, March24
in Vancouver
at 7:00 PM •
•
Thursday
evening, March26
in Spokane
at 7:00 PM •
•
Saturday
evening, March
28 in Colvilleat
6:00 PM•
April
23-May 1, 2026:
—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."
★
★ ★
~
Telemann Paris
Quartets ~
•
Thursday
early evening,
April23
on Orcas
Island
at 5:00 PM •
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."
★
★
★ ★
★
★ ★
★
★ ★
★ ★
•
•
•
ONLINE
PERFORMANCES • • • — To be
released someday!
—
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 12, 2026~ Suggested Donation for all
concerts:
$20 to $30
(a free will offering - everyone is most welcome)
• 18 and under FREE •
Do you receive our email announcements and flyers?!
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
.
June
6-17, 2026: 
