2023 – 2024 Concert Series

Songs of Black America

Brandon Patrick George, Flute & Aaron Diehl, piano

Brandon Patrick George is a leading flute soloist and GRAMMY nominated chamber musician whose repertoire extends from the Baroque era to today. He is the flutist of Imani Winds, and has been praised as “elegant” by The New York Times, as a “virtuoso” by The Washington Post, and as a “knockout musician” by The Philadelphia Inquirer. His ensemble work allowed him to work closely with some of the foremost composers of our time including John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Steve Reich, and George Lewis. He serves on the faculty of the Curtis Institute and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

The Gesualdo Six

Owain park, Director

The Gesualdo Six is an award-winning British vocal ensemble comprising some of the UK’s finest consort singers, directed by Owain Park. Praised for their imaginative programming and impeccable blend, the ensemble formed in 2014 for a performance of Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories in Cambridge and has gone on to perform at numerous major festivals across the UK, Europe, North America, and Australia.

The ensemble integrates educational work into its activities, regularly holding workshops for young musicians and composers. The Gesualdo Six has curated two Composition Competitions, with the 2019 edition attracting entries from over three hundred composers around the world.

Christmas-by-the-Cove

An annual Naples holiday tradition! The church will ring with Christmas joy as the choir of Trinity-by-the-Cove presents Christmas Carols old and new, enhanced by local instrumental musicians from the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra at Artis Naples.

Filament

Evan few, Baroque violin
Elena Kauffman, viola da gamba
John Walthausen, harpsichord and antique organ

Filament is a chamber ensemble, formed in 2019, of Philadelphia based period-instrument soloists. As constituents of the global early music community, they regularly join the ranks of such ensembles as Apollo’s Fire, Bach Collegium Japan, Chatham Baroque, Philadelphia Bach Collegium, Tempesta di Mare, Venice Baroque Orchestra, and the Washington Bach Consort. As an ensemble, they share their collective passion for the rich trio repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries with audiences in Philadelphia, the Delaware River Valley, and beyond. Recent preoccupations include music of Northern Germany and Scandinavia, and cross-cultural music making in Northern Europe.

Fuoco Obbligato “Amor diletto”

Fuoco Obbligato is the period instrument chamber ensemble of Paris’s Opera Fuoco, an organization that focuses on developing young singers transitioning from conservatory to professional life. In this program celebrating love from the baroque opera repertoire, Fuoco Obbligato brings together some of the most beautiful arias for soprano, tenor and baroque instruments. These arias often capture the most intimate moments of a larger-scale work, perfectly reflecting this human emotion. The dialogue between the singer and the instrumental soloist is nuanced and reveals the complexities of love. The program reflects many emotions - everything from sensuality and languishing melancholy to cheeky humor and outright theatricality.

Amor is both a piercing bowman and a playful cherub, a devastating tempter of fate and a forgivable joiner of hearts. The program ends with the delightful duet from Handel’s pastoral ode, a reassuring philosophical contemplation of the purity of the heart winning over the fanciful mind.

Akropolis reed quintet

Tim Gocklin, oboe
Kari Landry, Clarinet
Matt Landry, Saxophone
Ryan Reynolds, Bassoon
Andrew Koeppe, Bass Clarinet

Celebrating their fifteenth year as “a sonically daring ensemble who specializes in performing new works with charisma and integrity” (BBC Music Magazine), the Akropolis Reed Quintet has “taken the chamber music world by storm” (Fanfare).

Winner of seven national chamber music prizes including the 2014 Fischoff Gold Medal, Akropolis has premiered over 130 new compositions. They are the only reed quintet to twice appear on the Billboard Charts.