About
Baroque & Beyond is a series of period music concerts held in beautiful homes in the Chapel Hill area, including the Horace Williams House. Music of the baroque, classic, and romatic eras are heard on instruments of the period. Baroque & Beyond is committed to historically informed performance practices (HIP) . The series is presented by the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill.
Artistic Director of the series is harpsichordist/fortepianist Beverly Biggs. Beverly earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin Conservatory and a Master of Music degree from Southern Methodist University. Post-graduate study was done with harpsichordists Margaret Irwin-Brandon and Alan Curtis in the United States, and with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam.
In late 2004, Beverly moved back home to North Carolina after spending many years in the Pacific Northwest. While in Spokane, Washington, she performed, recorded, toured, and served as artistic director of two period music organizations. A founding director of both Connoisseur Concerts and Allegro, Bev specializes in period music of the late baroque, classic, and early romantic eras. Accomplishments include founding the Northwest Bach Festival, the Royal Fireworks Festival & Concert™, Allegro’s Viennese Ball, Music in Historic Homes, and Period Music at The Met.
Awards include a Washington State Governor’s Arts Award & a City of Spokane Arts Award for her organizations. Individual awards include the Pioneer Award, given to leaders in arts, medicine, government and other fields, to individuals who made ‘an indelible impact’ on the Inland Northwest over the past 125 years. Of her five recordings, Age of Elegance in the American West was named one of the best new albums of the year. Her musical ensemble was for many years the only classical duo on the WESTAF touring roster in the Western United States.
Bev’s primary performing instruments are a double-manual French harpsichord and a Mozart-era fortepiano (both replicas of original instruments). Her collection also includes other early pianos, an Italian virginal and a single-manual Flemish harpsichord.
Beverly Biggs – Discography
Age of Elegance David Dutton, oboe; Beverly Biggs, fortepiano. Music of Fauconier, Delibes, Mozart, Rubinstein, S. Foster, Lailliet, others. As researched in concert programs from the late 1800’s.
Musette – French Baroque Favorites David Dutton, oboe & musette; Beverly Biggs, harpsichord. Music of F. Couperin, Delalande, Lully, Marais, Rameau, Philidor, de Lavigne
Christmas with Biggs & Dutton David Dutton, oboe; Beverly Biggs, harpsichord & fortepiano; Ann Fennessy, soprano; Wayne Smith, cello. Music of Leclair, Telemann, Bach, Balbastre, and others (includes traditional)
Parisian Nights Beverly Biggs, fortepiano; William Davis, bassoon; David Dutton, oboe. Music of Rossini, Donizetti, Gatterman, Jancourt and Brod, as heard in Paris in the early 1800’s.
La Cenerentola Beverly Biggs, fortepiano; William Davis, bassoon; David Dutton, oboe. Music from Rossini’s popular opera, Cinderella, presented – as was customary during the period – in a concert arrangement for period piano, bassoon and oboe.
For CD reviews and availability, kindly link to the website of Allegro, the period music organization that Bev co-founded in Spokane, Washington: http://www.allegrobaroque.org/index.php?page=discography