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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 ~
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:
Late
July: — THE
18TH-CENTURY HARPSICHORD IN SPAIN
(Seattle,
Vancouver and Tacoma only - please see
those pages on our site)
· 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
certain locations]
Tuesday,
July 15 at 7:00 PM: — 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
(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.
Fantasia
11 by Giovanni Bassano (1585)
January 11, 2021
~ updated
June 1, 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
