Back by popular demand, Musicians of the Old Post Road’s online Delving Deeper series returns to explore historical and musical topics in an entertaining and informative film format. With Episode 4, Sites and Sounds of Early Sudbury, MOPR continues its long-standing commitment to uniting historical performance with historic architecture. The film premieres on Saturday, February 12 at 7:30pm EDT.
In this online presentation-performance, MOPR focuses on the history-rich town of Sudbury, Massachusetts. MOPR’s musicians are joined by members of the Sudbury Historical Society to give an informative tour of some of Sudbury’s intriguing sites of historical significance. Locations visited include the Loring Parsonage (now home to the Sudbury History Center and Museum), Revolutionary War Cemetery, Hearse House, Town Pound, Hosmer House, First Parish, Rice Tavern site, and the Pub Room at the Wayside Inn.
Through an informal interview format with the musicians, historical society members share enlightening background about the sites. Following each interview, MOPR musicians perform a work by a Massachusetts composer/arranger from the period (or a work known to have been performed in the region), relevant to the time period and original function of each site. Many performances feature modern-day premieres of fascinating rediscovered works, including several works from forgotten manuscripts that MOPR Artistic Directors Daniel Ryan and Suzanne Stumpf discovered in Massachusetts archives.
Viewers will meet little-known Massachusetts composers/arrangers like Samuel Holyoke, Oliver Shaw, and Isaac Lane. Flutists Suzanne Stumpf and Vincent Canciello, violinists Sarah Darling and Jesse Irons, and cellist Daniel Ryan bring these 18th and early 19th century spaces to life on period instruments.
The film will be available to ticket holders online and for 48 hours after its premiere. A live Zoom reception and Q & A session to follow. $10 students; $35 individual; $70 family. All Delving Deeper episodes are free for season subscribers. For more information or to purchase tickets or subscriptions, please visit www.oldpostroad.org, or call 781.466.6694
This project is supported, in part, by grants from The Sudbury Foundation. Musicians of the Old Post Road’s programs are also supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
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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