Saturday, October 26, 2024, 4:00 pm
First Parish Church, Sudbury, MA
Sunday, October 27, 2024, 4:00 pm
Old South Church, Boston, MA
and live-streamed at www.oldpostroad.org
In-person Audience Tickets $10-$55, kids come free with an adult
Virtual Audience Tickets: $35 individual, $70 family, $10 students
Two-time winner of the Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society, Musicians of the Old Post Road begins its 36th season with Risky Business, featuring riveting Baroque works by German composers who pushed the envelope of their musical world. Performances will be presented on October 26 at 4 pm at First Parish Church in Sudbury and October 27 at 4 pm at Old South Church in Boston and online. The weekend marks the opening of the season, “Flights of Fancy,” celebrating creativity from a broad array of musical minds in four programs that blend musical “rediscoveries” with beloved 18th-century works.
Risky Business will focus on the incredible innovations of composers from the early and late German Baroque. Works by early German Baroque composers include a trio sonata by Dietrich Buxtehude, a renowned composer and organist of his time whose last post was in Lübeck, Germany. He was so well-known and esteemed that a 20-year-old J.S. Bach traveled (allegedly by foot!) 250 miles just to see him perform. Composer Johann Jakob Walther, one of the most significant German violinists of the 17th century, will also be featured. Once the concertmaster at the court of Dresden, he is known to have composed only about 40 works, one of which will be a violin sonata performed as part of this program. Both pieces incorporate the stylus fantasticus, a musical style that possesses free, improvisatory qualities.
These pieces will be juxtaposed with works by equally inventive composers of the very late German Baroque who were pushing the envelope within their own dramatic styles. These include a trio sonata by Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, a composer who straddled the Baroque and Classical periods and served in Frederick the Great’s Court Orchestra in Berlin. A trio sonata by the brilliant composer Christoph Graupner, an emotionally-charged flute sonata by Jakob Friedrich Kleinknecht, and a colorful quintet by Carl Heinrich Graun round out this innovative, unique program. Excitingly, the quintet by Graun was only recently rediscovered, and this concert will likely offer the modern-day premiere of this work.
Musicians for these concerts, all of whom will play on period instruments, include flutist Suzanne Stumpf, violinist and violist Sarah Darling, violinist Jesse Irons, cellist Daniel Ryan, and harpsichordist Kelly Savage.
Single In-Person Tickets are $55 general admission, $50 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. Virtual single tickets and virtual subscriptions are also available.
For more information, visit www.oldpostroad.org, email musicians@oldpostroad.org, or call 781-466-6694.
The Sudbury concert is co-presented with the Sudbury Historical Society (members receive a $10 discount on their ticket), and is supported in part by a grant from the Sudbury Cultural Council. Programming is also 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 and 2023 Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society, Musicians of the Old Post Road has also received programming awards from Early Music America, 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), Roman Handel (Centaur, 2013), and Earthly Baroque (Centaur, 2017). An 8th CD entitled Into the Light, featuring music by Christoph Graupner, is planned for release in early 2025.
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Press Contact:
Joanna Boyle, General Manager
Musicians of the Old Post Road
781.466.6694
musicians@oldpostroad.org
