JUMP TO:
Sun. June 3 Ι Mon. June 4 Ι Tues. June 5 Ι Wed. June 6 Ι Thurs. June 7 Ι Fri. June 8 Ι Sat. June 9 Ι Sun. June 10 Ι Ticket Information
Sunday, June 3, 2018
SEATTLE HISTORICAL ARTS FOR KIDS, Shulamit Kleinerman, Director
Baroque opera for all ages: Handel’s Serse
Handel’s Serse is a tale of cleverness and bravery in the ancient imperial court of King Xerxes. Schemes are hatched, letters go astray, servants and nobles collude in deception, and a mysterious visitor in disguise takes treacherous action—all for the sake of justice and honor.
4:00pm St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — 2300 Bancroft Way, Berkeley
Buy Tickets: $15, $5 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More Information…
CALIFORNIA BACH SOCIETY, Paul Flight, Director
Un musicien de premier ordre—Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Heralded by the San Francisco press for its “dazzling” and “sublime” performances, California Bach Society showcases Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s best choral works. Artistic director Paul Flight leads the award-winning 30-voice chorus, vocal soloists, flutes, and a full consort of viols in the poignant Litanies de la Vierge and the splendid Missa Assumpta est Maria.
7:30pm St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — 2300 Bancroft Way, Berkeley
Buy Tickets: $45/$38, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More Information…
Monday, June 4, 2018
CHRISTINE BRANDES AND ELIZABETH BLUMENSTOCK, with Mary Springfels and Katherine Heater
Nasty Women—French Baroque Cantatas of Retribution
While this program of French baroque music will feature the spectacular instrumental works of Marin Marais and Jean-Marie Leclair, it will focus on two cantatas about the power of women. What could be more timely? The story of Judith’s bloody triumph over Holofernes was celebrated and politicized throughout the baroque era. Jacquet de la Guerre’s cantata is a spirited re-telling of the Biblical story. While Euripides emphasized Medea’s monstrousness, she was seen by readers from the Middle Ages to the baroque as a tragic heroine, an emblem of women’s will to avenge a grievous wrong. Clerambault’s astonishing cantata is one of the most powerful works of the age.
7:30pm St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — 2300 Bancroft Way, Berkeley
Buy Tickets: $45, $38, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More Information…
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
MEMBERS AND ALUMNI OF THE SAN FRANCISCO CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC, Corey Jamason & Elisabeth Reed, Directors
Two Baroque Girls
This program will feature music by female composers of the baroque era. The performers will present works by Maddalena Lombardini, Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre and Isabella Leonarda.
11:00am St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — 2300 Bancroft Way
Buy Tickets: $15, $5 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
DAVIS SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL BAROQUE ENSEMBLE, Angelo Moreno, Director
Music by Vivaldi, Handel, Purcell, Lully, and Avison
Davis Senior High School, located just northeast of the Bay Area in Davis, CA, established the first Baroque orchestra in a public high school in the US. They made their Berkeley Festival debut in 2014. They return to the Festival stage this year with a program of works by Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, Henry Purcell, Jean-Baptiste Lully, and Charles Avison.
4:00pm St. Mark’s Episcopal Church – 2300 Bancroft Way
Buy Tickets: $15, $5 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
PACIFIC MUSICWORKS, Stephen Stubbs, Director
Missions and Mysteries: Latin American Baroque
As the Spanish empire colonized Latin America, music became an important tool for evangelism and a key part of the quest to convert and ‘civilize’ the indigenous populations. In this program, Pacific MusicWorks, led by GRAMMY award winner Stephen Stubbs, explore the vibrant mix of Italian, Spanish, African, and indigenous elements that created the new musical style that developed in the cathedrals and missions of Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, and Bolivia. Both immigrant and native composers celebrated and explored the great mysteries of faith in spirited and vivacious works that can continue to speak to us today. Music by Esteban Salas, Manuel José de Quiroz, Manuel de Zumaya, and others.
7:30pm St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — 2300 Bancroft Way
Buy Tickets: $45/$38, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
JUILLIARD415, Robert Mealy, Director
Conversations Galantes et Amusantes
Eighteenth-century French chamber music by members of Juilliard415, students of the Juilliard Historical Performance program, directed by Robert Mealy.
11:00am St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — 2300 Bancroft Way
Buy Tickets: $15 $5 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
DARK HORSE CONSORT
The Sound of St. Mark’s
Rising out of the Mediterranean Sea, nestled next to the Ducal Palace of Venice, lies the glistening St. Mark’s Basilica. During the time of Giovanni Gabrieli and his colleagues, music making in the basilica was renowned throughout Europe. The sound of dazzling violins, bright cornetts and mellow sackbuts heralded back and forth between the balconies to the amazement of all who heard them. Featured will be the brilliant and resounding multiple choir canzoni by Gabrieli and Giovanni Picchi and the stunningly virtuosic sonatas by Dario Castello.
7:30pm St. Mark’s Episcopal Church – 2300 Bancroft Way
Buy Tickets: $45/38, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
Thursday, June 7, 2018
PHILHARMONIA BAROQUE CHAMBER PLAYERS
Telemann Paris Quartets
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1757) wrote with facility, clarity, and originality in many national styles and schools of playing. His strong connection to Parisian musicians and their style is evident in the two sets of quartets he wrote (1730, 1737) to perform in that city with the great instrumentalists of his day. On the 250th anniversary of Telemann’s death, virtuosi Elizabeth Blumenstock, Stephen Schultz, William Skeen, and Jory Vinikour perform several of Telemann’s remarkable Paris Quartets, whose unique scoring in some ways is a forerunner of the Classical quartet.
4:00pm St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — 2300 Bancroft Way
Buy Tickets: $45/38, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
VOICES OF MUSIC, David Tayler & Hanneke Van Proosdij, Directors, with THE SAN FRANCISCO GIRLS CHORUS
Dido and Aeneas
Voices of Music and the Grammy award-winning San Francisco Girls Chorus will co-present a concert version of Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas. In 1688, Purcell’s only opera was performed at Josiah Priest’s Girls School in Chelsea, London. No musical score survives from this performance; this concert is a recreation of what may have been heard at this time. The libretto was written by English poet laureate Nahum Tate. Voices of Music is directed by Hanneke van Proosdij and David Tayler, the San Francisco Girl’s Chorus is directed by Lisa Bielawa and Valérie Sainte-Agathe. Soloists: Jesse Blumberg and Mindy Ella Chu.
7:30pm First Congregational Church — 2345 Channing Way (entrance at Dana and Durant)
Buy Tickets: $56/$48/$40, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
SEQUENTIA, Benjamin Bagby, Director
The Lost Songs Project
Sequentia presents a reconstruction of the haunting Latin songs from the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius (d. ca. 526), one of the single most important and influential texts of the Middle Ages. The book was written in prison, on death row. Hundreds of years after his execution, the many songs from this book were set to music and sung, but their melodies remained largely lost to us until the groundbreaking work of Cambridge University musicologist Sam Barrett. We have made use of medieval manuscripts copied for monks in Canterbury, especially the 11th-c. collection called The Cambridge Songs. These songs are heard again today for the first time in a thousand years!
10:00pm St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — 2300 Bancroft Way, Berkeley
Buy Tickets: $45/$38, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More Information…
Friday, June 8, 2018
JORY VINIKOUR & PHILIPPE LEROY, Harpsichords
Musique à deux clavecins
PBO and SFEMS present two of the world’s leading interpreters of baroque keyboard music, performing a wide-ranging program of Spanish, French, and German baroque music for two harpsichords, featuring works of Padre Antonio, Soler, Jacques Dulphy, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, and father and son Johann Sebastian and Wilhelm Friedmann Bach.
11:00am St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — 2300 Bancroft Way
Buy Tickets: $45/38, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
QUICKSILVER, Robert Mealy and Julie Andrijeski, Directors
The Big Wig—Sophisticated and Unexpected Music from the Courts of France and England
In the seventeenth century, everyone wanted to be Louis XIV. When Charles II was restored to the throne of England, he brought with him a taste for the sophisticated music of the Sun King. In this program, the elegant inventions of the ancien régime are contrasted with the extraordinary and quirky music of native English composers; the two styles find a wonderful synthesis in the hands of the great Henry Purcell.
4:00pm St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — 2300 Bancroft Way
Buy Tickets: $45/$38, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
VOX LUMINIS, Lionel Meunier, Director
J.S. Bach Motets
This remarkable Belgian ensemble, blending their solo voices with the seamless perfection of a great wine, produces some of the most stunning and revelatory singing you will hear. They astonished Festival audiences in their 2014 American debut and bought down the house in the 2016 Festival Finale. They return to the Festival this year with a program of music by Johann Sebastian Bach’s motets, including two of the composer’s greatest choral works, the monumental and joyful double choir Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied and the profound and intense Jesu meine Freude.
7:30pm First Congregational Church — 2345 Channing Way (entrance at Dana and Durant)
Buy Tickets: $56/$48/$40, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
Saturday, June 9, 2018
VOICES OF MUSIC, David Tayler & Hanneke Van Proosdij, Directors, with THE SAN FRANCISCO GIRLS CHORUS
Dido and Aeneas
Voices of Music and the Grammy award-winning San Francisco Girls Chorus will co-present a concert version of Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas. In 1688, Purcell’s only opera was performed at Josiah Priest’s Girls School in Chelsea, London. No musical score survives from this performance; this concert is a recreation of what may have been heard at this time. The libretto was written by English poet laureate Nahum Tate. Voices of Music is directed by Hanneke van Proosdij and David Tayler, the San Francisco Girl’s Chorus is directed by Lisa Bielawa and Valérie Sainte-Agathe. Soloists: Jesse Blumberg and Mindy Ella Chu.
11:00am First Congregational Church — 2345 Channing Way (entrance at Dana and Durant)
Buy Tickets: $25, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
CANTATA COLLECTIVE, with Sherezade Panthaki, Soprano
Bach Sung, Bach Played
An opulent setting of vocal and instrumental gems by the Master, featuring the expert string players of Cantata Collective, oboist Marc Schachman, organist Avi Stein, and the radiant voice of soprano Sherezade Panthaki. Heard will be sinfonias, arias, dances, and the evergreen Wedding Cantata, BWV 202.
1:00pm St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — 2300 Bancroft Way
Buy Tickets: $45/38, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
SEQUENTIA, Benjamin Bagby, Director
Monks Singing Pagans—Medieval songs of heroes, gods and strong women
Medieval religious manuscripts from the 9th to 12th centuries show that monks and clerics sang far more than Gregorian Chant, including some texts that were anything but Christian. Students at Monastic and cathedral schools learned and memorized Roman authors, poets, dramatists, teachers, philosophers and historians, many of which they sang. Taken together with occasional Germanic pagan texts, there were songs of the old gods (Woden, Zeus, Jupiter, Bacchus), of men and heroes (Hercules, Orpheus, Boethius, Caesar) and of powerful female figures and goddesses (Valkyries, Fortuna, Philosophia, Cleopatra, Dido, Venus, the wild Ciconians). The survival of these songs, sometimes very fragmentary, provides us with a rich treasure-house of European vocal art, and witnesses to a vibrant culture where the Christian monk gave voice to his pagan ancestors, passing on stories and ideas which resonate to this day.
4:00pm St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — 2300 Bancroft Way
Buy Tickets: $45/38, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
MUSICIANS OF THE VALLEY OF THE MOON FESTIVAL, Tanya Tomkins & Eric Zivian Directors
An Die Musik—the Narrative Power of Schubert and Schumann
During the Romantic period, no concert was considered complete without a song. The Valley of the Moon Music Festival will present a typical 19th-century salon concert, beginning with Schubert’s turbulent Quartettsatz – a masterpiece in one compact movement. The concert will continue with some of Schubert and Schumann’s most beautiful lieder performed by renowned tenor Nick Phan, and end with Schumann’s great Piano Quintet with its triumphant double fugue. The audience will experience this intimate and psychologically stirring music on the instruments for which it was written, including natural horn and a Viennese fortepiano from 1841.
7:30pm First Congregational Church — 2345 Channing Way (entrance at Dana and Durant)
Buy Tickets: $56/$48/$40, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
Sunday, June 10, 2018
VOX LUMINIS, Lionel Meunier, Director
Festival Finale: Being—J.S. Bach
The Festival concludes with Vox Luminis’ clear, bright, and resonant voices, joined by Festival instrumental artists, in a selection of North German cantatas of the middle baroque—the heritage out of which J.S. Bach first developed his own sacred music. Featured works include Johann Christoph Bach’s Herr, wende dich und sei mir gnädig; Dietrich Buxtehude’s Herzlich Lieb hab ich dich, o Herr; and Johann Pachelbel’s Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan. The concert will conclude with Bach’s early, and justly renowned chorale cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 4.
4:00pm First Congregational Church — 2345 Channing Way (entrance at Dana and Durant)
Buy Tickets: $56/$48/$40, $15 *students under age 30 with ID
*Available only at the box office.
More information…
Back to topxxx
THE 2018 BERKELEY FESTIVAL & EXHIBITION IS PRESENTED BY
THE SAN FRANCISCO EARLY MUSIC SOCIETY