Arcadia Players - New England's Period Instrument Ensemble
Arcadia Players embraces
historical performance practice to illuminate and invigorate the great Western heritage of vocal and instrumental music. |
2024-2025 Concert Season
Music for Friends Saturday September 7, 2024 at 3:00 South Church, Amherst Andrus Madsen, harpsichord; Julia Glenn, violin; Douglas Kelley, gamba; Come meet our new Artistic Director Andrus Madsen and join us for an intimate program of chamber music by Buxtehude, Bach, Telemann and more. Many of these pieces were written by the composers to play with their musical colleagues, and in that spirit, we invite you to join us and the artists at a casual reception after the performance. Special introductory concert! All seats $25. Concerti for a King: music from the Court of Frederick the Great
Saturday October 26, 2024 at 7:00 PM Wesley Methodist Church, Hadley In 1732, eight years before Frederick the Great ascended to the Prussian throne, he formed a court orchestra at his estate in Rheinsberg. Frederick was a great judge of talent and quickly assembled a core of the most promising young musicians; his two greatest prizes were the violinists Franz Benda and Johann Gottlieb Graun. The two shared concert master duties and also wrote the most impressive violin music of the era. Later, Frederick the Great persuaded the young Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach to join the orchestra, pairing one of the greatest keyboard players of the day with two of the best violinists. This concert will feature violin concerti by Graun and Benda alongside a keyboard concerto by Carl Philip Emanuel Bach. All three concerti are marvelous and astounding. Julia Glenn will be the featured violin soloist and Artistic Director Andrus Madsen will solo on the Bach concerto. . A Handel Holiday Celebration: Messiah and a Chandos Anthem
Saturday December 21, at 7:30 Grace Church, Amherst Join us for an all-Handel holiday concert featuring Part 1 of Messiah (the Christmas portion) and Hallelujah from Part 2, as well as the Chandos Anthem My Song Shall be Alway. Handel's magnificent setting of the Advent Psalm 89 was written for performance at Cannons, a musical establishment presided over by the Duke James Brydges, later known as Lord Chandos. You can enjoy the familiar music from Messiah, and discover some of Handel’s best choral music you may not yet have heard. Andrus Madsen directs. Vermeer's "The Concert"
March 7-8, 2025 in the Warbeke Room, Pratt Hall, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley Two performances: Friday March 7 @ 7:30pm; Saturday March 8 at 3 pm In cooperation with the Mount Holyoke College Music Department Sophie Michaux – voice Douglas Kelley – viola da gamba Nathaniel Cox – lute and cittern Andrus Madsen – harpsichord In 1664 Johannes Vermeer painted a domestic music scene in which a singer is joined by a harpsichordist and a lutenist, with a viola da gamba on the floor and a bandora or a cittern on the table. (The painting was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 and has never been recovered.) This concert will be a reproduction of the music these musicians might have played, sampling from works widely available in Rotterdam in the 1650s, including then-popular Roman cantatas written for the instruments and voice depicted in the painting. This program will be performed twice in the Warbeke Room at Mount Holyoke College, an ideal space for this intimate repertoire. "Venetian Vespers:" a reconstruction of Vespers at St Marks in Venice as celebrated in the 1640s
Saturday May 3, 2025 at 7:30 Grace Church, Amherst By the 1560s the music of St. Mark’s in Venice had more impact on European sacred music than any other church music institution, a dominance it maintained well into the 17th Century. During this period, Vespers took on even more musical importance than the Mass, and music became the focal point of the entire service. Prayers and readings were whispered underneath the sound of the music, so that Vespers was really more like a concert than a church service. This program features works by two of St. Mark's most important composers of the time, Giovanni Rovetta and Giovanni Rigatti. Their music was meant to appeal to the heart much more than to the mind, and is astoundingly sensual and almost overwhelming in its beauty. Season tickets for all 4 concerts available for $120 (September concert not included)
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