WCRB 99.5 to air Martin Pearlman and Boston Baroque’s acclaimed 2015 performances of Handel’s Agrippina starring Susanna Phillips, David Hansen, Amanda Forsythe, Kevin Deas, Marie Lenormand, Douglas Williams, and Krista River this Sunday, February 7, 2016 at 7:00 pm

“This Agrippina is high fun from beginning to end.” –The Boston Musical Intelligencer

Tune in to WCRB 99.5 this Sunday, February 7 at 7:00 pm, for a broadcast of Boston Baroque’s last season’s opera production of Handel’s Agrippina led by founder and music director Martin Pearlman. The celebrated production, praised as “…a superb, intimate production of Handel’s Agrippina. The first of Handel’s operatic masterpieces and the work that catapulted him into fame and success, Agrippina thrives on sparkle and wit. The work skewers its characters, but everything is leavened with genuine emotion and intelligence. Boston Baroque captured the work’s elusive, challenging style and presented it with thrilling panache.” (Boston Classical Review) stars:

soprano Susanna Phillips as Agrippina

countertenor David Hansen as Nero

soprano Amanda Forsythe as Poppea

bass-baritone Kevin Deas as Claudius

mezzo-soprano Marie Lenormand as Ottone

bass-baritone Douglas Williams as Pallante

mezzo-soprano Krista River as Narcisso

baritone Mark McSweeney as Lesbos

Martin Pearlman, conductor

Boston Baroque

Vibrant, richly detailed performances, sophisticated interpretive skills and an evocative command of various composers and styles are a few of the hallmarks of esteemed American conductor Martin Pearlman. An international conductor known for his crisp communicative skills, Pearlman is also a highly regarded scholar, composer and an acclaimed four-time Grammy ­nominated recording artist. Founder and music director of the Boston Baroque, Mr. Pearlman enjoys an active guest conducting career on both the opera and orchestral stages.

Martin Pearlman founded the first permanent Baroque orchestra in North America with Boston Baroque in 1973-74. Since then, he has led the Boston, Massachusetts-based ensemble in numerous American and world period-instrument premieres of operas, choral, and instrumental works, including Mozart operas and major works of Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Monteverdi and Rameau. In addition to directing Boston Baroque in its annual subscription series, he has taken the ensemble on tour nationally and in Europe, and has made 23 recordings for Telarc International, four of which have been Grammy nominated, cementing the organization’s reputation as America’s premiere period-instrument orchestra. Mr. Pearlman and the Boston Baroque, as of 2012, became the first American orchestra to record with the UK label Linn Records. His most recent recording with Boston Baroque, his own performance version of Monteverdi’s opera Il ritorno d’Ulisse for Linn Records, released May 18, 2015, is nominated for a Grammy for Best Opera Recording.

Based in Boston, and widely regarded as “one of the world’s premier period-instrument bands, Boston Baroque 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. Boston Baroque’s many career milestones include the American premiere of Rameau’s Zoroastre, the American period-instrument premieres of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute, and modern premiere of The Philosopher’s Stone, a singspiel newly discovered to include music by Mozart which shed fresh light on his canon. In recent years, Boston Baroque presented Boston’s first complete cycle of the surviving operas of Monteverdi with new performing editions by Martin Pearlman of L’incoronazione di Poppea and Il ritorno d’Ulisse and an internationally acclaimed series of Handel operas which include Agrippina, Alcina, Xerxes, Giulio Cesare, Semele, and Amadigi di Gaula.

Upcoming performances with Boston Baroque led by Mr. Pearlman include March 4 and 5, 2016 performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 and Piano Concerto No. 2 with fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout in his Boston Baroque debut, Beethoven’s aria Ah, perfido! with soprano Ana Maria Labin, and Haydn’s Scena di Berenice at NEC’s Jordan Hall. Mr. Pearlman closes the Boston Baroque season April 15 and 16 with a semi-staged production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) with Nicholas Phan as Tamino and Leah Partridge as Pamina.