Boston Baroque, America’s first period-instrument orchestra, has announced its 2012-2013 concert season,

Boston Baroque, America’s First Period-Instrument Orchestra, Announces a Season of Comedy and Drama, Devotions and Celebrations 2012-2013 Season to Include Operas by Handel and Pergolesi, and Major Choral Works by Handel and Haydn, Whose “Lord Nelson” Mass Will be Recorded

New York, New York, United States., May 10, 2012 - (PressReleasePoint) -

Boston Baroque, America’s first period-instrument orchestra, has announced its 2012-2013 concert season, running from October 19, 2012 to April 20, 2013. Music Director Martin Pearlman will conduct five programs of two performances each, taking place at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall in Boston or at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University in Cambridge. Highlights of the season will include a rarely-performed Handel comic opera, Partenope; Haydn’s “Lord Nelson” Mass, which is slated to be recorded for later release on CD; Handel’s Messiah at the holidays; and concerts that feature members of the orchestra and chorus in small ensemble and solo roles.

Boston Baroque and Martin Pearlman bring a modern sensibility to early music. “To want to hear music performed in the style of its own time is a distinctly contemporary attitude, just as we now want to understand another culture through its own eyes,” states Mr. Pearlman, when asked about the popularity of period instruments. “Each age reinvents this music in its own way to keep it alive, and this is what our modern time has found appealing. Our concerts are not history lessons; they are exciting, fun events. We do our best to learn to play the instruments of earlier times and to interpret what people wrote about how to play this music. From that we’ve developed a style, which we find exciting and which has become popular with audiences. Modern ears like to hear early music played this way.”

THE 2012-13 SEASON
Handel:  Partenope | Friday, October 19, 2012, 7:30pm • Saturday, October 20, 2012 7:30pm | NEC’s Jordan Hall | The season will open with George Frideric Handel’s delightful Partenope (par-TEN-oh-pay), with soprano Amanda Forsythe in the title role. The opera had not been heard much over the years, but received renewed attention after the New York City Opera performed it to great acclaim in 2010. Partenope premiered in 1730 and is a comedy – unusual for Handel, as most of his operas are more serious – a light and frothy romp involving jilted lovers, hidden identities, and gorgeous arias in which, as the New York Times says, “the women come out on top.” Semi-staged and sung in Italian with English supertitles.

Handel:  Messiah | Friday, December 7, 2012, 7:30pm • Saturday, December 8, 2012, 7:30pm | NEC’s Jordan Hall | Boston Baroque gave Boston’s first period-instrument performances of Handel’s glorious oratorio in 1981, and the work has become an annual tradition at the holidays for many members of Boston Baroque’s audience. The ensemble’s recording garnered its first Grammy® nomination, and was named the no. 1 Messiah on disc by the U.K. magazine Classic CD. This year the orchestra and chorus will be joined by three soloists who perform frequently with the ensemble – soprano Mary Wilson, mezzo-soprano Ann McMahon Quintero, and baritone Andrew Garland – as well as tenor John McVeigh, making his debut with Boston Baroque.

Gala New Year’s Eve and First Day Concerts | Monday, December 31, 2012, 8:00pm • Tuesday, January 1, 2013, 3:00pm | Sanders Theatre | The centerpiece of this year’s New Year’s Eve and First Day concerts will be Giovanni Pergolesi’s one-act comic opera, La serva padrona. This 1733 work tells the tale of an aging master and his much-younger maid-turned-mistress, a story that was quite revolutionary and titillating in its time. Baritone David Kravitz will be featured soloist. Also on the program are Baroque concertos by Arcangelo Corelli and Georg Philipp Telemann, featuring Boston Baroque’s orchestra musicians as soloists. To add to the festivities, audience members will be invited to enjoy a complimentary Champagne toast at intermission.

A Baroque Banquet | Friday, March 8, 2013, 8:00pm • Saturday, March 9, 2013, 8:00pm
NEC’s Jordan Hall | The early spring concert will be an opportunity for Boston Baroque’s acclaimed chorus to take center stage in three sumptuous works that span the Baroque era across Europe. The program will open with Giacomo Carissimi’s expressive and poignant 1650 oratorio, Jephte, followed by Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s harmonically rich and introspective Missa Assumpta est Maria from around 1700. J. S. Bach’s deeply moving early cantata, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (“God’s Time Is the Best Time”), scored for the transparent sound of recorders and gambas, will complete the program.

Haydn:  “Lord Nelson” Mass | Friday, April 19, 2013, 8:00pm • Saturday, April 20, 2013, 8:00pm | NEC’s Jordan Hall | Franz Joseph Haydn’s brilliant “Lord Nelson” Mass – or Mass in Time of Anguish – stirs powerful emotions, ranging from solemnity and torment to joyous celebration. The Mass premiered in 1798, at the time of Nelson’s victory over Napoleon, and the work gradually acquired the nickname that it carries to this day. The Mass is a late work, written shortly after Haydn completed his oratorio, The Creation; Boston Baroque performed and recorded The Creation last year, and plans to record the Mass for Linn Records after these concerts. Soloists will include soprano Mary Wilson and bass-baritone Kevin Deas. Ludwig van Beethoven’s youthful, exuberant Symphony No. 2 will complete the program.
 
Performance Venues and Subscription Information  Performances take place at the following venues, both fully wheelchair accessible and convenient to public transportation: NEC’s Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, MA 02115; Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Pre-concert talks take place one hour before every performance, and are open to all ticket holders. Subscriptions for the 2012-2013 season range from $66 for a three-concert package, to a maximum of $380 for all five concerts in the top seating category. Subscribers enjoy a variety of benefits, including price discounts, easy ticket exchange, special subscriber events throughout the season, and more. For more information or to place subscription orders, patrons can call the Boston Baroque box office, at 617/987-8600 ext. 1, Monday through Friday from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Information is also available online at www.bostonbaroque.org. Tickets to individual concerts will be available on September 1.

BOSTON BAROQUE is the first permanent Baroque orchestra established in North America and is widely regarded as being among the world’s leading period-instrument ensembles. Founded in 1973 as Banchetto Musicale by Music Director Martin Pearlman, the Boston Baroque orchestra is made up of some of the finest period-instrument players in the U.S.; they are frequently joined by the company’s professional chorus and by instrumental and vocal soloists from around the world. The ensemble presents an annual subscription series of five programs, performed at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall or Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre, plus occasional additional concerts at other venues. Boston Baroque also reaches an audience of millions of listeners around the globe with more than 20 critically-acclaimed recordings, which have been recognized with three Grammy® nominations.  With last season’s recording of Haydn’s Creation, Boston Baroque begins a new recording relationship with the audiophile European label Linn Records, named by Gramophone as Label of the Year in 2010. Boston Baroque made an acclaimed appearance in 2009 with two programs at the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, and performed Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 to a sold-out crowd and standing ovation in New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine in March 2010. The ensemble made its European debut in 2003, performing Handel’s Messiah to capacity crowds in Krakow and Warsaw, Poland, and toured the Vespers to Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, and Tanglewood in 2004. Boston Baroque is funded in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council and by the National Endowment for the Arts. www.bostonbaroque.org

MARTIN PEARLMAN, founder and Music Director of Boston Baroque, is a conductor, harpsichordist, composer and early-music specialist, and is one of America’s leading interpreters of Baroque and Classical music. Highlights of his work include the complete Monteverdi opera cycle, with his own new performing editions of The Coronation of Poppea and The Return of Ulysses; the American premiere of Rameau’s Zoroastre; Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride and Alceste; a survey of Beethoven symphonies on period instruments; major Handel operas including Alcina, Agrippina, Semele and Xerxes; and a Mozart opera series including The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, Così fan tutte and the North American period instrument premiere of Don Giovanni. Mr. Pearlman made his Kennedy Center debut with The Washington Opera in Handel’s Semele, and has guest conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, Utah Opera, Opera Columbus, Boston Lyric Opera, Minnesota Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony and New World Symphony. Recent compositions by Mr. Pearlman include The Creation According to Orpheus for solo piano, harp, percussion and string orchestra; and music for three plays of Samuel Beckett, commissioned by and premiered at New York’s 92nd Street Y and performed in Cambridge in 2007. Writing in the Boston Globe, Anthony Tommasini said, “If fans of Boston Baroque wonder why Pearlman’s conducting is so insightful, it’s because he knows, as only a composer can, how music goes.” Mr. Pearlman is Professor of Music in Historical Performance at the Boston University School of Music.

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