Grand Harmonie Announces Fifth Season with Six Concerts Across Greater Boston and New York City
Highlights include:
Mozart with violinist Cynthia Roberts
Beethoven Symphony no. 1
Haydn The Creation with Edward Elwyn Jones and Harvard University Choir
Mozart La Finta Giardiniera with On Site Opera
Boston, MA (August 18, 2016) — Grand Harmonie announced its 2016-2017 season today, marking five years of groundbreaking period-instrument performances throughout the Northeast. The season features six concerts in Greater Boston and New York City, and includes the first American performance of Dvorak’s masterful Serenade on all original 19th-century wind instruments, as well as the premiere of a new arrangement of Mozart’s early opera La Finta Giardiniera for Harmonie band.
GRAND HARMONIE 2016-2017 SEASON CONCERTS:
with guest artists violinist Lauren Basney and pianist David Kim
September 17, 7:30pm, Second Church, 60 Highland St., Newton, MA 02465
September 18, 7:30pm, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 838 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139
Tickets: $15-$30
The season opens with Bohemian Rhapsody, a program inspired by mid-19th century Bohemia, where folk melodies and gypsy-inspired virtuosity abound. Grand Harmonie will be joined by guest artists violinist Lauren Basney and pianist David Kim. Mr. Kim, who performed with Grand Harmonie on its eclectic first season salon concert in 2013, will open the concert with Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s Military septet, one of the few chamber works of the 19th century to feature a natural trumpet. The Kim-Basney Duo will conjure the sounds of the Bohemian countryside with Antonin Dvorak’s Songs my Mother Taught Me and Bedrich Smetana’s Fantasy on a Bohemian Song. Closing the concert will be Dvorak’s masterful Serenade, inspired by Mozart’s Gran Partita and performed on all original 19th-century wind instruments for the first time in the United States.
Gods and Mortals: Mozart with Cynthia Roberts, solo violin and leader
November 3, 12pm: FREE Showcase concert at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, in conjunction with the Mount Sinai Concerts for Patients
November 4, 7:30pm, St. Ignatius of Antioch: 552 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10024
November 6, 3pm, United Parish, 210 Harvard St, Brookline, MA 02446
Tickets: $15-$35
The mortals of Grand Harmonie join with the divine powers of the celebrated Cynthia Roberts, violin and leader, to breathe life into the celestial and eternal music of Mozart’s 41st Symphony, Jupiter. Ms. Roberts will also tackle Mozart’s beguiling Violin Concerto in A, K. 219 and will join Grand Harmonie’s principal strings in Mozart’s delightfully weird Serenata Notturna K. 239 featuring solo timpani. Ms. Roberts is one of America’s leading performers of baroque and classical violin, touring and performing regularly in the United States and Europe. She is the concertmaster of New York Collegium, Apollo’s Fire, and Concert Royal and recently appeared at the invitation of William Christie as concertmaster of Les Arts Florissants. Ms. Roberts appears regularly with Tafelmusik and the American Bach Soloists, and is principal second violin in the Carmel Bach Festival.
Midtown Concert Series: By George
February 23, 1:15pm, St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal, 325 Park Ave, New York, NY 10022
Tickets: Free
France in 1850 was a wild place in art history, with heightened expression and creativity across genres and métiers. In visual art, Realism was showing audiences the rawness and richness of daily life, glorifying not the noble classes but the common man and his daily tasks. This organic yet impassioned art, which followed in music through experimental harmonic sonic landscapes, is what brought George Onslow, known as the “French Beethoven,” to focus on composition. Being so moved by this new style of music, he once wrote, “I sensed myself at once penetrated by feelings previously unknown to me; even today this moment is present in my thought. After this, I saw music with other eyes…”
Let Grand Harmonie take you to this radical frontier in historical performance and show you what happened “next” with Onslow’s Wind Quintet op. 81.
Sarah Paysnick, flute; Kristin Olson, oboe; Thomas Carroll, clarinet; Yoni Kahn, horn; Clay Zeller-Townson, bassoon
Scott Allen Jarrett, conductor
Featuring Jacquelyn Stucker, soprano
Yoni Kahn, horn
March 25, 7:30pm, Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave #1A, Somerville, MA 02143
March 26, 3:00pm, Second Church, 60 Highland St., Newton, MA 02465
Tickets: $15-$30
This rollicking program features a little of everything, including Beethoven Symphony no. 1, wild romantic horn antics featuring Grand Harmonie co-founder and principal horn Yoni Kahn, a pirate-themed overture performed by the Grand Harmonie wind band, and Jacquelyn Stucker singing a most impassioned and dramatic concert aria. The first performance will feature an in-the-round atmosphere, with pre-concert reception and time to explore the music from the inside out. It’s more of a party than a concert. The second performance will be in a more traditional setting, although Grand Harmonie has never been known for doing anything “normal”…
Haydn The Creation with Harvard University Choir
April 29, 7:30pm, Memorial Church, Harvard Yard
Edward Elwyn Jones, conductor
The Creation, Hob. XXI:2 – Joseph Haydn
Tickets: Free
Let’s go back—way back. Back to the primordial ooze of Genesis, where Haydn musically illustrates the formation of each flower, rock, and beast throughout this epic oratorio. Of particular interest is the fabulously large orchestra which stretches even modern ensembles to the brink, including an absolutely full wind and brass section and one of the earliest appearances of the contrabassoon. Don’t miss this opportunity to see (and hear) the instrument in person!
Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera (The Secret Gardener) with On Site Opera
Conducted by Geoffrey McDonald
Directed by Eric Einhorn
Arranged for Harmonie band by Yoni Kahn and Thomas Carroll
May 2017, more details TBA
Grand Harmonie is proud to join New York’s groundbreaking site-specific company On Site Opera in a co-production with The Atlanta Opera of Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera (The Secret Gardener). In Mozart’s time, operatic arrangements for Harmonie band were wildly popular, and true to period style, the production will feature the premiere of a brand-new arrangement for wind octet and bass by Grand Harmonie members Yoni Kahn and Thomas Carroll. Conducted by Geoffrey McDonald, who first worked with Grand Harmonie in last season’s Fidelio, and directed by Eric Einhorn, the performances will take place in New York City in May 2017. More details to be announced.
About Grand Harmonie:
Grand Harmonie brings vibrant, historically-informed, period-instrument performances of Classical and Romantic music to audiences across the Northeast. Founded in 2012 by a group of wind players interested in exploring the repertoire of Harmonie bands of the 18th century, the scope of the ensemble rapidly expanded to encompass a vast array of concert settings. Now in its fifth season, performances have included Harmoniemusik, salon concerts with fortepiano, mixed chamber music with brass and strings, full symphony orchestra, and both concert and fully-staged opera. A key player in the arts community, Grand Harmonie enjoys collaborations with numerous organizations and universities, and appears on multiple concert series in both Boston and New York.
Recent collaborations include performances with Harvard University Choir, Boston Opera Collaborative, Lorelei Ensemble, Bach Vespers NYC, GEMS Midtown Concerts, Met Museum Gallery Concerts and more. The ensemble, a proven educational resource, has been invited to give performances and master classes in historical performance practice at Harvard University, MIT, Princeton University, The Longy School of Music of Bard College, NYU, the University of Washington, and Palm Beach Atlantic University.
