Single tickets $25
A wonderful development took place in Bologna, Italy around 1680. String makers there discovered a new technique of wrapping gut strings in metal, making possible an instrument with the lower octave range and power of a bass violin, but without the long thick strings which inhibit virtuoso playing. Thus the violoncello as a solo voice was born!
The earliest cello virtuosi were invariably either singers themselves, or actively engaged in the composition of vocal music. Our program, beginning in Bologna and its environs and traveling to important musical centers in Naples, Rome, and Venice, explores the early cello sonata repertoire alongside the many vocal arias featuring the solo obbligato cello. And what better instrument to have on the bass line than the theorbo, developed in Italy for the very purpose of accompanying the voice!
Angelo Maria Fiorè, Sonata à Violoncello solo in G Major Grave – Allegro – Adagio – Allegro – Adagio – Presto
Caterina Benedetti Grazianini, L’aria col violoncello from S. Gemigniano A veder si raro oggeti (Affetuoso)
Antonio Maria Bononcini, Sinfonia per Camera Cantabile – Spiritoso – Minuet
Alessandro Scarlatti, Aria: Più del vago pellicano (Un poco largo) from Il Giardino di Rose
Intermission
Francesco Alborea, Sonata à Violoncello solo in C Major Presto – Adagio –Presto –Adagio – Allegro – Adagio – Vivace
Nicola Antonio Porpora, Aria: Bella Diva from L’Angelica (1686-1768)
Antonio Vivaldi, Sonata à Violoncello solo in Bb Major, RV47 Largo – Allegro – Largo – Allegro
Antonio Caldara, Aria: Quando non v’è piu speme (Allegro) from the Cantata La Di Parnasso
“With consummate poise, limpid clarity, and faultless intonation” (Washington Classical Review), soprano Amy Nicole Broadbent has garnered recognition as a dynamic and versatile musical force. Amy has performed as a soloist for the Oregon Bach Festival, Staunton Music Festival, Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Washington National Cathedral, Washington Bach Consort, The Thirteen, and the Folger Consort. She created and recorded the role of Sebastian in Scott Ordway’s opera, The Outer Edge of Youth, acclaimed by Opera News (Critic’s Choice), Gramophone, and BBC Music Magazine. Other stage roles include Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Bastienne (Bastien und Bastienne), Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Johanna (Sweeney Todd), La Statue Animée (Pygmalion), Josephine (H.M.S. Pinafore) and Elsie (The Yeoman of the Guard). Amy won first-place in the Audrey Rooney Bach Competition (Kentucky Bach Choir) and the National Society of Arts and Letters’ Winston Voice Competition. She is a soprano vocalist and the Assistant Conductor of the U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters, the official chorus of the U.S. Navy, as well as a founding member of vocal quartet The Polyphonists. Amy holds degrees in both voice and conducting from the University of Maryland. amy-broadbent.com
Baroque & Beyond’s artistic director, Stephanie Vial, is a widely respected cellist, praised for her technical flair and expressive sense of phrasing. She is a co-director of The Vivaldi Project (based in Washington, DC) with whom she developed the recording series Discovering The Classical String Trio (MSR Classics) hailed by Gramophone as “captivating” and “highly recommended.” Additional recording can be found on the Dorian Label, Naxos, Hungaroton, and Centaur Records. She has traveled widely, giving solo and chamber music concerts, lectures, and master classes at numerous universities and institutions: The Shrine to Music Museum in South Dakota, The University of Virginia, Boston Conservatory, McGill University, and The Curtis Institute of Music. Vial holds a DMA in 18th-century performance practice from Cornell University where she studied with John Hsu. She is the author of The Art of Musical Phrasing in the Eighteenth Century: Punctuating the Classical “Period,”published by the University of Rochester Press. She currently teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.
William Simms is an active performer of early music. Equally adept on lute, theorbo and baroque guitar, he appears regularly with Apollo’s Fire, The Washington Bach Consort, The Arcadia Players, IndyBaroque, The Thirteen and Three Notch’d Road. He has performed numerous operas, cantatas, and oratorios with such ensembles as The Washington National Opera, The Cleveland Opera, Opera Lafayette, and American Opera Theatre. Venues include The National Cathedral, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Library of Congress, Tanglewood, The Kennedy Center and The Barns at Wolftrap. He has toured and recorded with The Baltimore Consort as well as with Apollo’s Fire. He performed on the Grammy winning Songs of Orpheus with Apollo’s Fire and Karim Sulayman. His recording with Ronn McFarlane, Two Lutes, was the CD pick of the week on WETA in Washington DC in 2012. Mr. Simms received a Bachelor of Music from The College of Wooster and a Master of Music from Peabody Conservatory. He serves on the faculties of Mount St. Mary’s University and Hood College, and is the founder and director of the Hood College Early Music Ensemble. He has recorded for the Dorian, Centaur, Naxos and Eclectra labels.