Baroque Diva: A Tribute to Faustina Bordoni

• Teresa Wakim, soprano

Delight in dazzling arias and cantatas written for superstar Faustina Bordoni. Faustina's vocal celebrity inspired a long list of works written to highlight her unique talent. Discover the lasting impact she had on 18th-century opera through virtuoso selections by her husband J.A. Hasse, Leonardo Vinci, and Handel. Instrumental pieces by Hasse, Gasparini, and others complete the scene. Featuring soprano Teresa Wakim.

This program will be presented twice: March 11 at 4pm Eastern at First Parish In Wayland, and March 12 at 4pm at Old South Church. The March 11 performance will also be livestreamed, and made available for 72 hours until 3/14/23.

About Musicians of the Old Post Road

Musicians of the Old Post Road takes its name from its acclaimed concert series that brings period instrument performances of music of the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries to beautiful historic buildings along New England's fabled Old Post Road, the first thoroughfare to connect Boston and New York City in the late 17th Century.

Winner of the 1998 Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society, Musicians of the Old Post Road has also received programming awards from Chamber Music America and the US-Mexico Fund for Culture. The ensemble has toured in Germany, Austria, and Mexico, and has appeared at festivals and on concert series in the US, including the Indianapolis Early Music Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival Concert Series, the Castle Hill Festival, the Artists Series at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and the Connecticut Early Music Festival. The ensemble has held a residency at Dartmouth College and was featured on WCVB television's Chronicle program and 99.5 All Classical radio's Live from Fraser program.

The ensemble's discography includes seven recordings that have each been praised in the US and abroad. They include: The Virtuoso Double Bass (Titanic, 1994), Trios and Scottish Song Settings of J. N. Hummel (Meridian, 1999), Galant with an Attitude: Music of Juan and José Pla (Meridian, 2000), Quartets of Telemann and Bodinus (Meridian, 2004), Feliz Navidad: Christmas from Spain and New Spain (Meridian, 2008), and Roman Handel (Centaur, 2013).  The ensemble’s 7th CD, Earthly Baroque, was released by Centaur in 2017.

About Teresa Wakim, soprano

With a voice of "extraordinary suppleness and beauty" (The New York Times), Grammy-nominated soprano Teresa Wakim is "a marvel of perfect intonation and pure tone" (New York Arts), and perhaps known best for her "perfect early music voice" (Cleveland Classical). First Place Winner of the International Competition for Early Music in Brunnenthal, Austria, she was also honored as a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow at Emmanuel Music Boston. A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, she maintains a busy career as a concert soloist spanning the medieval to new music, and on the baroque opera stage.

She played the role of La Musique in Charpentier's Les Plaisirs de Versailles with the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) nominated for a Grammy in the 2020 awards. Also with BEMF she sang the role of Flore in their 2015 GRAMMY-Award Winning album of Charpentier's La Descente d'Orphee aux Enfers album. Other solo recordings include BEMF's Acis & Galatea in a title role, Handel's Almira, Charpentier's Acteon, Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate and Coronation Mass with the Handel and Haydn Society, and the GRAMMY-Nominated recording of Brahms' German Requiem with Miami's premiere choral ensemble Seraphic Fire. Acclaimed concert performances include Bach's wedding cantata Weichet nur and Mendelssohn's Hear My Prayer with the Cleveland Orchestra, Handel's Messiah with the Houston, San Antonio, Charlotte, Alabama, and Tucson Symphonies, Bach’s Mass in B minor with the Louisiana Philharmonic, Brahms' German Requiem with the Omaha Symphony, and Orff's Carmina Burana with Boston Landmarks Orchestra.

Passionate about period performance and scholarship, she has performed concerts and toured with many of the world’s best period instrument ensembles, including the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, BEMF, Wiener Akademie, Apollo’s Fire: The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Mercury Baroque, Dallas Bach Society, Handel Choir of Baltimore, Pacific MusicWorks, Tragicomedia, The Dryden Ensemble, Bourbon Baroque, Three Notch’d Road, the Musicians of the Old Post Road, Les Bostonades, New York Baroque Inc, and Blue Heron.

When not performing, Tess can be found caring for her young daughter, and discussing all things blue whales, gene therapy, and space exploration with her scientist husband in Boston, MA.