VASHON
ISLAND
EPISCOPAL CHURCH
OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
15420
Vashon Highway SW www.holyspiritvashon.org
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•
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SSEMF presents outstanding early chamber music on
Vashon Island 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
the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit
2025
Salish Sea Early Music Festival on Vashon Island ~
Period Instrument chamber music from six centuries
on Vashon Island and around the Salish Sea ~
~ Presented in
collaboration with the Episcopal Church of the Holy
Spirit ~
~
All Mondays at 12:00 NOON
★ download updated
flyer here ~
Monday,
July 14, 2025
at 12:00 noon :
—
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
~
Monday,
January 20, 2025 at
12:00 NOON: — 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.
Monday,
February 24,
2025 at 12:00 NOON:
— 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."
Monday,
March 10,
2025 at 12:00 NOON:
—
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.
Monday,
May 5 at 12:00 NOON:
— 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.
Tuesday,
May 13 (was
May 26) at
12:00 NOON: — CONCERTI
from the COURT of
FREDERICK THE GREAT (please
note revised date)
· 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.
Monday,
June 9,
2025 at 12:00 NOON:
—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
highly 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:
Fantasia
11 by Giovanni Bassano (1585)
January 11, 2021
~ updated
June 19, 2025 ~
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Please sign our MAILING LIST (please specify Vashon
Island)
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.
Tuesday,
May 13 (was
May 26) at
12:00 NOON: — CONCERTI
from the COURT of
FREDERICK THE GREAT 
17th
Century
