Tickets are on sale now for this new, hybrid in-person and streaming concert
Boston Baroque opens its season with a program of music by George Frideric Handel and Jean-Féry Rebel this October at GBH’s Calderwood Studio, welcoming live studio audiences on site and virtual audiences around the world via livestream. The performances will take place on Saturday, October 23rd at 3pm & 8pm, and Sunday, October 24th at 3pm.
The performances will be presented in an immersive, visually sumptuous environment featuring high-quality lighting design, projection design by IRNE Award-winning projection designer Seághan McKay, and carefully crafted camera angles from livestream director Matthew Principe, former associate producer of the Metropolitan Opera’s award-winning Live in HD Series.
The all-orchestral program, conducted by Music Director Martin Pearlman, begins with Handel’s Concerto Grosso in G, Op. 6, No. 1, followed by his ebullient Water Music, Suite No. 3 in G Major for Flute featuring soloist Joseph Monticello. Rebel’s stunning work Les Élémens brings together depictions of the four elements of air, earth, fire, and water, representing the creation of nature, while Handel’s beloved Music for the Royal Fireworks rounds out the shimmering program.
Safety will remain a top priority for both musicians and audience members. In-person audiences will be required to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 along with accompanying photo identification to enter the hall. Masks will be required at all times while indoors at GBH. Audiences will have the option to watch the October 23rd performance at 8pm via livestream, made possible by Boston Baroque’s new streaming partner IDAGIO.
This season is a new chapter and step into the future after a year of cataclysmic change for the field of early and classical music. Boston Baroque is committed to creatively bringing our mission to life in this new world with live and streaming audiences across the world engaging with high-quality music in an intimate and interactive way.
Both in-person and livestream tickets are available for purchase online at baroque.boston or by calling the Box Office at (617) 987-8600. Livestream tickets begin at $9, and in-person tickets range from $25-$125.
ABOUT BOSTON BAROQUE
The six-time GRAMMY®-nominated Boston Baroque is the first permanent Baroque orchestra established in North America and, according to Fanfare Magazine, is widely regarded as “one of the world’s premier period instrument bands.” The ensemble produces lively, emotionally charged, groundbreaking performances of Baroque and Classical works for today’s audiences performed on instruments and using performance techniques that reflect the eras in which the music was composed.
Founded in 1973 as “Banchetto Musicale” by Music Director Martin Pearlman, Boston Baroque’s orchestra is composed of some of the finest period instrument players in the United States, and is frequently joined by the ensemble’s professional chorus and by world-class instrumental and vocal soloists from around the globe. The ensemble has performed at major music centers across the United States and performed recently in Poland for the 2015 Beethoven Festival, with sold-out performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 in Warsaw and Handel’s Messiah in Katowice.
Boston Baroque reaches an international audience with its twenty-five acclaimed recordings. In 2012, the ensemble became the first American orchestra to record with the highly-regarded UK audiophile label Linn Records, and its release of The Creation received great critical acclaim. In April 2014, the orchestra recorded Monteverdi’s rarely performed opera, Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, which was released on Linn Records and received two nominations at the 2016 GRAMMY® Awards.
Boston Baroque’s recordings have received six GRAMMY® Award Nominations: its 1992 release of Handel’s Messiah, 1998 release of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, 2000 release of Bach’s Mass in B Minor, 2015 release of Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, and 2018 release of Biber’s The Mystery Sonatas.
High-res photos available for download online: https://baroque.boston/press-kit
ABOUT MARTIN PEARLMAN, FOUNDING MUSIC DIRECTOR AND CONDUCTOR
Boston Baroque founder, music director, and conductor Martin Pearlman is one of this country’s leading interpreters of Baroque and Classical music on period and modern instruments. In addition to Boston Baroque’s annual concert season, Mr. Pearlman tours in the United States and Europe and has produced twenty-six major recordings for Telarc and Linn Records. Mr. Pearlman’s completion and orchestration of music from Mozart’s Lo Sposo Deluso, his performing version of Purcell’s Comical History of Don Quixote, and his new orchestration of Cimarosa’s Il Maestro di Cappella were all premiered by Boston Baroque.
Highlights of his work include the complete Monteverdi opera cycle, with his own new performing editions of L’incoronazione di Poppea and Il ritorno d’Ulisse; the American premiere of Rameau’s Zoroastre; the Boston premiere of Rameau’s Pigmalion; the New England premieres of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride and Alceste; and the Beethoven symphonies on period instruments. Mr. Pearlman is also known for his internationally acclaimed series of Handel operas including Agrippina, Alcina, Giulio Cesare, and Semele. He made his Kennedy Center debut with The Washington National Opera in Handel’s Semele and has guest conducted the National Arts Center Orchestra of Ottawa, Utah Opera, Opera Columbus, Boston Lyric Opera, Minnesota Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony and the New World Symphony. Mr. Pearlman is the only conductor from the early music field to have performed live on the internationally televised GRAMMY® Awards show.
Mr. Pearlman grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, where he received training in composition, violin, piano, and theory. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University, where he studied composition with Karel Husa and Robert Palmer. In 1967–1968, he studied harpsichord in Amsterdam with Gustav Leonhardt on a Fulbright Grant, and in 1971 he received his Master of Music in composition from Yale University, studying composition with Yehudi Wyner and harpsichord with Ralph Kirkpatrick. After moving to Boston, he performed widely as a solo harpsichordist in the U. S. and Europe, and in 1973 he founded the first American period instrument orchestra, Banchetto Musicale, now called Boston Baroque. He also served as Professor of Music in the Historical Performance department at Boston University’s School of Music.
Recent compositions by Martin Pearlman include a string quartet, piano works, a comic chamber opera The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, a three-act work on Finnegans Wake, as well as The Creation According to Orpheus, for solo piano, harp, percussion and string orchestra. He has also composed music for three plays of Samuel Beckett, commissioned by and premiered at New York’s 92nd Street Y and performed at Harvard University.
