“Springtime Baroque: Airs for Spring” is the fifth program in this year’s Salish Sea Early Music Festival and features soprano Arwen Myers, harpsichordist Elisabeth Wright and baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan in a spring-inspired program of music by Handel, Bach, Couperin and others from the first half of the 18th century, performed on instruments with which these musicians would have been familiar.
Selections offered in this Springtime Celebration will include “Easter Oratorio” by Johann Sebastian Bach, the cantata “Orphée” by Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, airs celebrating spring by Toussaint Bordet for soprano with flute, Couperin’s harpsichord solos “Les Fauvétes Plaintives” and “La Linote-éfarouchée”, both evocative of bird calls, and “Singe, Seele” (“Sing, my soul”) and “Flammende Rose” (“Flaming Rose”) from Georg Frideric Handel’s “9 German Arias”.
Presented in collaboration with the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Whidbey Island, the concert takes place at 7 p.m., on Sunday evening, March 24 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at 20103 Highway 525 in Freeland.
Admission is by suggested donation (a free will offering) of $20 to $30. Those 18 & under are free. For additional information please see www.salishseafestival.org/whidbey. Please see our complete list of all remaining performances through early July on Whidbey Island below.
Soprano Arwen Myers performs early and modern repertoire with many of the nation’s premiere ensembles. A native of Augusta, Georgia, Arwen holds advanced degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she studied with Alan Bennett and Patricia Brooks Havranek. Based in Portland, Oregon, she is executive and co-artistic Director of Northwest Art Song.
Harpsichordist Elisabeth Wright has taught for almost four decades at Indiana University School of Music and as one of America’s most highly respected harpsichordists has collaborated with numerous artists of international renown.
Baroque flutist Jeffrry Cohan is artistic director of the Salish Sea Early Music Festival and has performed in 25 countries on flutes from the renaissance through the present.
The Salish Sea Early Music Festival presents early chamber music on period instruments around Salish Sea and in Eastern Washington.
Remaining 2024 Salish Sea Early Music Festival on Whidbey Island include the following, all of which are at 7:30 p.m at the Unitarian church:
On April 7, Springtime Baroque: Airs for Spring, with soprano Arwen Myers, harpsichordist Elisabeth Wright and baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan
On May 5, Psalms (1620) & Irish (1720) & Folksong (1820). Oleg Timofeyev on Renaissance lute and 7-string guitar and Jeffrey Cohan on renaissance, baroque and 8-keyed flutes
On May 26, Baroque Concerti • harpsichordist Jonathan Oddie, violinist Carrie Krause, violinist Elisabeth Phelps, violist Victoria Gunn, cellist Adaiha MacAdam-Somer and Jeffrey Cohan on baroque flute
On June 30, music of Johann Sebastian Bach with harpsichordist Irene Roldan and flutist Jeffrey Cohan
