Salish Sea Early Music Festival: Springtime Baroque – Airs for Spring
Free (suggested donation: $20-$30, ages 18 & under free)
- Arwen Myers, soprano
- Elisabeth Wright, harpsichord
- Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute
Louis-Nicolas Clérambault — Orphée
Toussaint Bordet — Recueil d'airs avec accompagnement (selections)
François Couperin — Les Fauvétes Plaintives (Pièces de clavecin, Livre 3, Quatorzième Ordre, No. 4)
François Couperin — La Linote-éfarouchée (Pièces de clavecin, Livre 3, Quatorzième Ordre, No. 3)
George Frideric Handel — Singe, Seele, HWV 206
George Frideric Handel — Flammende Rose, Zierde der Erden, HWV 210
"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 from Johann Sebastian Bach's Easter Oratorio are to be included in this Springtime Celebration alongside 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.
Salish Sea Early Music Festival will give eleven performances of this program around the Puget Sound region, Apr. 6-13; the 2024 Festival will consist of nine unique programs total, spanning January through June. Please see www.salishseafestival.org/ for more info.
About Arwen Myers, soprano
Praised for her "crystalline tone and delicate passagework" (San Francisco Chronicle), soprano Arwen Myers captivates audiences with her timeless artistry and exquisite interpretations. Transmitting a warmth and "deep poignancy" (Palm Beach Arts Paper) onstage, Arwen shines in solo performance across the US and beyond. With outstanding technique and mastery of a wide range of vocal colors, Arwen's dazzling oratorio and solo appearances feature repertoire from the baroque to modern day, and everything in between. Her history includes appearances with Portland Baroque Orchestra, Early Music Vancouver, Pacific MusicWorks, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, working with such notable conductors as Nicholas McGegan, Monica Huggett, David Fallis, John Butt, David Hill, Scott Allen Jarrett, Erick Lichte, and Matthew Dirst.
https://www.arwenmyerssoprano.com/About Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute
Flutist Jeffrey Cohan, who the Boston Globe calls "The Flute Master," has performed in 25 countries throughout Europe, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and for the USIA Arts America Program in the South Pacific, South America, Turkey, and Portugal. First Prize winner of the Olga Koussevitzky Young Artist Competition in New York and recipient of grants from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music and the French Government, he has received international acclaim both as a modern flutist and as one of the foremost specialists on transverse flutes from the renaissance through the early 19th Century. The only musician to have been awarded both the highest prize in the Concours Musica Antiqua in Bruges, Belgium and in the Erwin Bodky Competition in Boston, two of the most prestigious prizes for performers of early music on period instruments, he has premiered new music by many American and European composers. Jeffrey Cohan directs the Cascade Early Music Festival, the Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival, and the Black Hawk Chamber Music Festival. The New York Times has heralded his ability to "play several superstar flutists one might name under the table."
https://www.jeffreycohan.com/