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,
June
26, 2026
at 7:00
PM:
—BAROQUE IN
TRANSITION: THE TREBLE VIOL
· Annalisa
Pappano, treble
viol
· William Simms,
baroque guitar and theorbo
· Jeffrey Cohan,
baroque and renaissance flutes
 In
Baroque in Transition: The Treble
Viol, our final 2026 program, the
transition in instrumental music as
the Renaissance flowered into the
Baroque through the 17th century
will be explored through the
perspective the smaller fretted
member of the viola da gamba family
in a diverse selection of 17th and
early 18th-century Italian, English
and French and German music,
alongside transverse flutes of both
the Renaissance and the Baroque, and
the 17th-century guitar.
The canzona appeared in the 1570's
as a more vocally inspired
instrumental form in contrast to the
ricercare of the renaissance. It
evolved into the familiar sonata as
it exhibited ever more
instrumentally virtosic colors into
the mid 1600’s. At this time
diverging Italian and French styles
prompted intense intellectual
clashes between their proponents.
To be represented are early
17th-century Italian composers
Tarquino Merula, Bartolomé de Selma
y Salaverde, Marco Uccelini,
Giovanni Paulo Cima and Giovanni
Battista Buonamente, followed by mid
17th-century English composer
Matthew Locke alongside virtuoso
embellishments for treble viol by
mid-century German composer Johannes
Schop. Contrasting works by
Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lully and
Italian violinist Archangelo Corelli
appeared in the same manuscript (!)
at the court of Louis XIV in 1695
and are to be heard, performed with
baroque transverse flute, followed a
Suite by early 18th-century French
composer Louis-Antoine Dornel from
1713, shortly before the death of
Louis XIV and representing the end
of a musical era, following which
the Italian and French styles were
to be more commonly integrated.
★
★ ★
|
~
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.
★ ★
★
|
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
—BACH
& JACQUET
Johann Sebastian Bach &
Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre
· Irene
Roldàn, harpsichord
· Jeffrey Cohan, baroque
flute
Guest
Spanish harpsichordist Irene Roldán from
Basel, Switzerland and baroque flutist
Jeffrey Cohan explore connections between
Johann Sebastian Bach and French composers
such as Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre and
Louis Couperin, from whose innovations
Bach was to benefit. Harpsichord solos
including La Guerre’s Prélude in D Minor,
La Zaïde by Pancrace Royer, and the Suite
in F Major by Louis Couperin will
complement flute sonatas in E Major and G
Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach alongside
the performers’ transcriptions of Bach’s
violin sonata in C Minor and the violin
sonata in D Major by É. Jacquet de La
Guerre
Born 20 years before Johann Sebastian Bach
and a favorite composer of Louis XIV,
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre made many
important contributions in her
compositions both for solo keyboard and in
the development of the cantata, all the
while juxtaposing and integrating the
distinct French and Italian styles,
setting the stage for similar techniques
and forms that Bach was later to use
extensively and develop further.
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.
|
|
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
June 21, 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.
|
