2020-21 season
Seize the Moment!
A Musical Treasure Trove
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary treats! Join us for a virtual concert series for our 32nd season where everyone has a front row seat as we reveal lost musical gems from across countries and continents.
Experience our music-making through engaging videography with varied views and close-ups that will highlight the musical drama. Then gather together in our Zoom post-concert receptions to chat with the performers and fellow attendees.
All concerts are Saturdays at 7:30 pm EDT
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October 3: Intimate Soliloquies (still available with Premier Subscription!)
Alluring, unaccompanied works for flute, violin, viola, cello, harpsichord.
Experience the directness and individuality of Old Post Road's five core members through performances of unaccompanied works. This program includes toccatas for cello by Supriani, harpsichord works by Scarlatti & J. S. Bach, opera aria arrangements for viola by Rolla, the Passacaglia for violin by Biber, and the flute sonata in A Minor by C.P.E. Bach.
December 12: Christmas Potpourri
Soprano Jessica Petrus joins Musicians of the Old Post Road to delight online audiences with an engaging and unique Christmas program, spanning geography and time. Festive seasonal rediscoveries from composers across two continents, including instrumental French noël settings by Charpentier, Baroque arias from Italy, Mexico, and England, and Leopold Mozart's playful “Musical Sleigh Ride.” With Suzanne Stumpf, traverso; Sarah Darling and Jesse Irons, violins; Marcia Cassidy, viola; Daniel Ryan, cello, and Olav Chris Henriksen, theorbo and historical “English guittar.”
March 13: Forgotten Voices
A crescendo of instrumental forces from duo to trio to quartet to quintet that reveal the creative voices of outstanding, overlooked Classical era composers. Franz Danzi’s Duo in G Major for flute and cello, Maddalena Sirmen’s String Trio in D Major, Chevalier de Saint-Georges’s String Quartet in C Major, and Andreas Lidl’s Quintet in G Major for flute and strings.
April 24: C’est Magnifique!
The fabulous, fiery French Baroque on full display! French elegance is united with Italian flair in instrumental works by star composers who enlivened the Paris musical scene, including Leclair, Telemann, and Dauvergne.
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Subscribe now!
Premier Subscription
• All four virtual concerts with live Zoom receptions
PLUS
• Permanent links for all four concerts for the remainder of the season (after each concert is streamed), so the concerts can be viewed at your convenience
• Free admission to our Delving Deeper Series — three streamed presentation-performances by ensemble members with live Zoom Q&A
Basic Subscription
• All four virtual concerts with live Zoom receptions
Single Tickets also available
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Delving Deeper Series - Three Saturdays at 7:30pm
With the decades surrounding the birth of J.S. Bach as a nexus, we explore the artistic evolution of some of our period instruments through these three one-hour presentation-performances by OPR core members. Zoom Q&A to follow each.
Free to Premier Subscribers!
Jan. 30: The Teenage Violin: Growth Spurts in the Seventeenth Century by Sarah Darling
Originally used as an instrument for dance bands, the violin really grew to maturity as a solo voice between 1600-1700. Excitement over the flashy new instrument and its potential manifested itself in the Italian "stile moderno" and the German "stylus fantasticus" with highly virtuosic and experimental writing that will be explored in this talk with musical samplings.
Feb. 13: Unaccompanied Cello Repertoire: Origins through J. S. Bach by Daniel Ryan
This presentation/performance explores the origins and early development of the cello. Unlike the violin and viola, the size of the cello was not standardized until the 1680's, much later that its smaller string counterparts. Throughout the Baroque era, there continued to be great variety in how the instrument was made and played, including the number of strings, their tuning, and how the cello and bow were held. The variety in structure of and approaches to the instrument is reflected in the fascinating early repertoire written for it. Music performed and discussed in this presentation includes some of the earliest works for the cello: a ricercata by Giovanni Battista Degli Antonii and a ricercar by Domenico Gabrielli, both of which use a tuning of the instrument where the top string is tuned to G, one tone lower than the customary A. That same "Italian" tuning was used by J. S. Bach in his Suite No. 5 in C Minor for solo cello which will be discussed and performed in its entirety.
Feb. 27: Journey of the Transverse Flute by Suzanne Stumpf
From the invention of the Baroque flute just prior to Bach’s birth as the first fully chromatic transverse flute, to the development of multi-keyed Classical and old-system Romantic flutes, to Theobold Boehm's modern flute, listeners will learn about the cultural and technological influences that guided changes to the flute and experience the charm of each instrument through short performances of works by Hotteterre, Telemann, Quantz, Tromlitz, Kuhlau, Gaubert, Debussy, and others.
