Into The Light: Unearthed Treasures
by Christoph Graupner
Saturday, April 29, 2023, 4:00 pm EDT
Worcester Historical Museum, Worcester, MA
Sunday, April 30, 2023, 4:00 pm EDT
Old South Church, Boston, MA and live-streamed at oldpostroad.org
In-person Audience Tickets $10-$50, kids come free with an adult
Online Audience Tickets: $35 individual, $70 family, $10 students
On April 29th and 30th, 2023, Musicians of the Old Post Road brings to in-person and online audiences Into The Light: Unearthed Treasures by Christoph Graupner. This program, the final one of the ensemble’s 34th season, pays homage to the German composer and harpsichordist who, in his time, was as highly regarded as his contemporaries Bach, Telemann, and Handel.
Despite his incredibly prolific career (there are about 2,000 surviving compositions in his catalog), Graupner’s works fell into obscurity after his death, partially due to legal questions around his estate. A humble man without much thought for his legacy, it is said that he requested all his music be destroyed by fire after his death. Although that did not happen, those legal battles actually ensured that his musical estate was preserved in its near entirety.
Neglected and unseen for centuries, Graupner’s compositions are gradually experiencing a revival, due in part to the research efforts of many academics and musicians, including Musicians of the Old Post Road. The ensemble will introduce one of his many inventive flute concertos, his Trio Sonata in B Minor for flute, violin, and continuo, his Sonata in G Minor for strings and continuo, and his Sonata in G Major for flute and obbligato harpsichord. The program also includes a chaconne for strings and continuo by Graupner’s Darmstadt patron Count Ernst-Louis, a quartet for flute, two violas, and continuo by his talented student Johann Fasch, and a quartet for flute, strings and continuo by his good friend Telemann.
Instrumentalists for this concert include Suzanne Stumpf, traverso, Sarah Darling and Jesse Irons, violins, Marcia Cassidy, viola, Daniel Ryan, cello, and Michael Sponseller, harpsichord, all of whom will perform on period instruments.
Single In-Person Tickets are $50 general admission, $45 seniors, $35 for under 35, Kids 18 and under are free with an adult. Day-Of-Concert Rush Tickets (students and EBT Card holders only) are $10, availability permitting. Online single tickets and online subscriptions are also available.
In-Person Season Subscriptions are available for $170. These include in-person and online access to all four concert programs this season, along with free admission to the most recent fifth online episode of the ensemble’s Delving Deeper series. All of this season’s streamed concerts and all five Delving Deeper episodes are available to subscribers through June 30, 2023.
For more information, visit www.oldpostroad.org, email musicians@oldpostroad.org, or call 781-466-6694.
The Worcester concert is co-presented with the Worcester Historical Museum (members receive a $10 discount on their ticket). The Boston concert is supported, in part, by a grant by the Boston Cultural Council. Programming is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, an agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
ABOUT MUSICIANS OF THE OLD POST ROAD
Musicians of the Old Post Road takes its name from its acclaimed concert series that brings period instrument performances of music of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries to beautiful historic buildings along New England’s fabled Old Post Road, the first thoroughfare to connect Boston and New York City in the late 17th century.
Winner of the 1998 Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society, Musicians of the Old Post Road has also received programming awards from Chamber Music America and the US-Mexico Fund for Culture. The ensemble has toured in Germany, Austria, and Mexico, and has appeared at festivals and on concert series in the US, including the Indianapolis Early Music Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival Concert Series, the Castle Hill Festival, the Artists Series at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and the Connecticut Early Music Festival. The ensemble has held a residency at Dartmouth College and was featured on WCVB television’s “Chronicle” program and 99.5 All Classical radio’s “Live from Fraser” program.
The ensemble’s discography includes seven recordings that have each been praised in the US and abroad. They include: The Virtuoso Double Bass (Titanic, 1994), Trios and Scottish Song Settings of J. N. Hummel (Meridian, 1999), Galant with an Attitude: Music of Juan and José Pla (Meridian, 2000), Quartets of Telemann and Bodinus (Meridian, 2004), Feliz Navidad: Christmas from Spain and New Spain (Meridian, 2008), and Roman Handel (Centaur, 2013). The ensemble’s 7th CD, Earthly Baroque, was released by Centaur in 2017.
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Press Contact:
Joanna Boyle, Office and Concert Manager
Musicians of the Old Post Road
781.466.6694
