A Concert with The Countess: The Baroque Meets Drag
$50
- Stephen Stubbs, lute
- Henry Lebedinsky, harpsichord
- Tekla Cunningham, baroque violin
- John Taylor Ward, bass-baritone
- Maxine Eilander, baroque harp
- David Morris, viol
- Tshedzom Tingkhye, dance
Nicholas Lanier — No more shall meads be deck'd with flow'rs
André Campra — Les Fêtes Venitiennes (selection)
Nicola Matteis — Fantasia No. 2 for Solo Violin in A minor "Alia Fantasia"
Henry Purcell — "Hark how all things!" from The Fairy Queen, Z. 629
George Frideric Handel — "I rage, I melt, I burn" ("O ruddier than the cherry") from Acis and Galatea, HWV 49
"The Countess" makes her West Coast debut with music inspired by Shakespeare and Pepys. This rollicking season opener premieres at Pike Place Market's treasured theater, The Rabbit Box. Get your tickets now for two opportunities to join bass-baritone John Taylor Ward, dancer Tshedzom Tingkhye, and the Pacific MusicWorks ensemble.
This program will receive 2 performances: Saturday, October 7 at 7:30pm; and Sunday, October 8 at 1pm.
About Stephen Stubbs, lute
About Henry Lebedinsky, harpsichord
About Tekla Cunningham, baroque violin
Baroque violinist Tekla Cunningham delights in bringing the music of the baroque, classical and romantic eras to life with vivid and expressive historically informed performances.
Praised as "a consummate musician whose flowing solos and musical gestures are a joy to watch", her performances have been described as "ravishingly beautiful" and "stellar". Her greatest musical love is music of the baroque and chamber music of all stripes, though she can’t seem to quit Johannes Brahms. She is co-artistic director of Pacific MusicWorks in Seattle, artist-in-residence at the University of Washington and founder and director of the Whidbey Island Music Festival.
Tekla plays regularly as concertmaster and principal player with the American Bach Soloists. Her new release 'Stylus Phantasticus' with Pacific MusicWorks is delighting critics. "Tekla is a marvel…an endlessly songful bird". Early Music America describes the recording as "played with verve, the music presented here reaffirms the old notion that instrumental music can have the flair of any theatrical spectacle. … a stellar vessel for the boldest showmanship".
Tekla plays on a violin made by Sanctus Seraphin in Venice in 1746.
http://www.teklacunningham.com/About John Taylor Ward, bass-baritone
John Taylor Ward's performances have been praised for their "Stylish abandon" (Alex Ross, The New Yorker) and their "finely calibrated precision and heart-rending expressivity" (Washington Post). He performs regularly with the world’s finest baroque musicians and ensembles, including Christina Pluhar and L'Arpeggiata, Paul O'Dette, Steven Stubbs and the Boston Early Music Festival, William Christie and Les arts florissants, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists. In 2016, he was featured in the U.S. premiere of Claude Vivier's Kopernikus, directed by Peter Sellars at the Ojai Festival, and he began a series of recitals at Joe's Pub with Cantata Profana. In 2017 he made his debuts at the Salzburg, Berlin, and Luzerne Festspieles. Taylor holds a BM from the Eastman School of Music and an MMA from Yale School of Music; he is the founding Associate Artistic Director of the Lakes Area Music Festival, an Associate Artist of Heartbeat Opera, and an avid Sacred Harp singer.
https://www.johntaylorward.com/About Maxine Eilander, baroque harp
http://www.pacificmusicworks.org/team_member/maxine-eilander/
About Tshedzom Tingkhye, dance
Tshedzom Tingkhye is a first-generation Tibetan artist who specializes in dance performance, choreography, improvisation, and dance film. She is a graduate from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee where she was a recipient of the Julie Thompson Memorial Scholarship and alumni award winner for Highest in Academic Achievement.
Originally from Seattle, Washington, Tshedzom grew up a homeschooler and had an independently lead education in various arts including Tibetan music, classical music, dance, theater, and visual arts. She began dancing at The Creative Dance Center with Anne Green Gilbert where she explored modern techniques, improvisation, partnering, and composition. She was a member of Kaleidoscope Dance Company for 7 years and worked with a plethora of choreographers including Jim Coleman, Marlayna Locklear, Wade Madsen, and Ellie Sandstrom. As a young adult, Tshedzom explored the larger Seattle dance scene and performed with local companies including The Three Yells with Veronica Lee-Baik and Beautiful Carcass with Maya Soto + Nico Tower. After receiving her Associates degree, Tshedzom pursued her BFA in Contemporary Dance Performance at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee.
At the Conservatory, she worked with notable artists including Robert Moses' Kin, Juel D. Lane, Edisa Weeks, and Urban Bush Women. In her undergraduate studies, Tshedzom took interest in Dance Theatre, Cunningham, contemporary, codified modern techniques, and dance technology. As a result of the pandemic, she found film as a means to create in isolation and developed a new passion for this medium. She created a diverse collection of dance films in which she explored various ways of maintaining focal balance between editing composition, choreography, and movement of the camera. This discovery led her to produce her senior thesis project, “a gallery of ཐུན་མཚམས།”, an evening-length interdisciplinary work that combined dance film, live performance, and interactive set.
Tshedzom's choreography has been presented at Henry Purcell Society of Boston, Kaleidoscope Dance Company, TibetFest, Tibet Film Festival, Brooklyn Museum, Dance Film Lab, and the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Her practice continues to evolve while maintaining roots in her Tibetan culture, activism, and relationship with nature. Tshedzom is a member of Motlee Party and a part of Boston Early Music Festival’s Dance Ensemble. Based between Seattle and Boston, Tshedzom grows a body of repertoire while actively performing across coasts.
https://wwwtshedzom.com/