Chiesa and Camera: Virtuoso Vocal and Instrumental Chamber Music from Italy, 1650-1700
Grammy-nominated countertenor Ryland Angel joins Musica Pacifica in a stunning program highlighting the connections between the sacred and the secular during the Italian Middle Baroque. The program features appealing sacred motets of Alessandro Scarlatti and Alessandro Stradella, as well as complementary instrumental works by these composers and their contemporaries. The music of this era is not as well known today as it should be, but its characteristic marriage of virtuosic agility and sustained lyricism was a major inspiration to the composers of the next generations—Corelli, Vivaldi, Handel and Bach.
MUSICA PACIFICA: Judith Linsenberg, recorders; Elizabeth Blumenstock, violin; William Skeen, ‘cello; Charles Sherman, harpsichord and organ; John Lenti, theorbo; Ryland Angel, countertenor
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 8:00PM
First Presbyterian Church
1140 Cowper Street at Lincoln, Palo Alto
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 7:30PM
St. John’s Presbyterian Church
2727 College Ave at Garber, Berkeley
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 4:00PM
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church
1111 O’Farrell at Gough, San Francisco
SERIES SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE ON SALE NOW!
Full Series—Six Concerts (Members save 25%, Non-Members save 15%)
Mini Series—Three Concerts (Members save 20%, Non-Members save 10%)
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MUSICA PACIFICA has, since its founding in 1990, become widely recognized as one of America’s premier baroque ensembles, lauded for both the dazzling virtuosity and the warm expressiveness of its performances. They have been described by the press as “some of the finest baroque musicians in America” (American Record Guide) and “among the best in the world” (Alte Musik Aktuell). At home in the San Francisco Bay area, the artists perform with Philharmonia Baroque and American Bach Soloists, and appear with many other prominent early music ensembles nationally and abroad.
They have performed on some of the most prestigious concert series in the U.S., including Music Before 1800 and the Frick Collection (NY), the Getty Museum (Los Angeles), the Cleveland Art Museum, the Pittsburgh Renaissance and Baroque Society, the Seattle Early Music Guild, the Houston Early Music Society, and the Los Angeles County Museum, among many others. The ensemble has been featured at the Berkeley Early Music Festival three times, and their first appearance there was cited in Early Music (UK) as “perhaps the standout of the entire festival.” They have performed at festivals in Germany and Austria and have been heard on German National radio as well as on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today” and “Harmonia” and on Minnesota Public Radio.
Born on St Cecilia’s day, the British counter-tenor RYLAND ANGEL has built an international reputation on both the opera and concert stage, in repertoire ranging from the Baroque to new operatic commissions at major opera houses, concert halls and festivals throughout Europe and the USA.
Recent operatic engagements include Radamisto at St. Louis Opera Theater, Agrippina for New York City Opera, Tolomeo with Muziektheater Transparant, Semele with Cologne Opera, Rodelinda at the Carre Theatre in Amsterdam, Julius Caesar at Utah Opera and Opera Colerado, Il Sant Alessio on tour with Les Arts Florissants at the Lincoln Center New York, Cité de la Musique in Paris and the Barbican Centre in London, Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria for Toulouse Opera with Christophe Rousset (also in Paris and Lepizig), Theodora with Graeme Jenkins at Dallas Opera, Handel’s La Resurrezione with Ars Lyrica, Monteverdi’s Orfeo with Boston Early Music Festival, the title role in Stradellas’ San Giovanni Battista at The Italian Academy in New York with Artek, Israel in Egypt with Princeton Glee Club, Acis and Galatea at Hobby Center Houston and Doux Mensonges at the Opéra National de Paris Palais Garnier with William Christie.