Salish Sea Early Music Festival: Bach with Vollrath & Cohan
Free (suggested donation: $20-$30; ages 18 & under free)
- Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute
- Faythe Vollrath, harpsichord
Johann Adam Reincken — Partite diverse sopra l'Aria "Schweiget mir von Weiber nehmen"
Prizewinning harpsichordist Faythe Vollrath from Sacramento, CA will join baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan for a mostly-Bach extravaganza in the final 2024 Salish Sea Early Music Festival program in this year's festival of early music performed on period instruments.
The program will demonstrate the unparalleled mystery and emotional intensity of Bach's compositional skill, featuring transcriptions of works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) originally for viola da gamba and another for violin, both with obbligato (or fully written-out) harpsichord in addition to sonatas originally written for flute by Bach both with continuo (a bass line with numbers denoting harmonies from which the harpsichordist improvises) and with obbligato harpsichord. Faythe Vollrath will play variations for solo harpsichord by Johann Adam Reincken (1643-1722) on the popular 17th-century German folk tune "Schweiget mir von Weibernehmen" ("shush, no more talk about womanizing"). Reinken was greatly admired by Bach, who made arrangements of several of his works.
Salish Sea Early Music Festival will give 13 performances of this program around the Puget Sound region, June 27-July 11.
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/About Faythe Vollrath, harpsichord
Harpsichordist Faythe Vollrath is actively heard as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States. Hailed by the Wall Street Journal for her "subtly varied tempo and rhythm that sounds like breathing," her solo performances include venues such as MusicSources in Berkeley, CA, Gothem Early Music in New York City, and Bruton Parish Church in Colonial Williamsburg, VA.
Enamored with the contrast of new music written for historic instruments, Faythe combines new vs. old elements in many of her performances including concerts of new music in both Serbia and France featuring new American composers, for the Festival of New American Music in Sacramento, CA, and for the Center for New Music in San Francisco, CA. She has paired Japanese harpsichord works with Japanese art at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA, and has performed in a columbarium as part of the Garden of Memory in Oakland, CA.
Faythe received first prize with an excellence nomination in the Vivaldi International Music Competition, and was a semi-finalist in the Petrichor International Music Competition, both in 2022. Additional awards include first place in the Charleston International Music Competition in 2021, semi-finalist in the 2012 Jurow International Harpsichord Competition, and the 2009 Betchel award recipient presented by the Midwestern Historical Keyboard Society. Her duo, Zweikampf, was a finalist in Early Music America's inaugural Baroque Performance Competition. They have been featured on public radio in both Michigan and Arizona and perform throughout the United States. Faythe received her doctoral diploma from SUNY-Stony Brook under Arthur Haas, and artist diploma from the U of I Urbana-Champaign under Charlotte Mattax Moersch. She earned her Bachelors of Music in Piano Performance from CSU-Sacramento while studying piano with Richard Cionco.
https://faythevollrath.com/