2024 PhilaLandmarks Early Music Series
PhilaLandmarks Early Music Series brings local classical music ensembles to the Powel and Hill-Physick Houses to bring these historic spaces to life with music.
Variant 6 - Haute Voix
February 2, 2024 | 7:00PM | Hill-Physick House
In this program the founding member sopranos of Variant 6 - Jessica Beebe and Rebecca Myers - will explore the boundless possibilities of two both distinct and complementary soprano voices. Internationally acclaimed Philadelphia artists Leon Schelhase and Sarah Cunningham join them on harpsichord and viola da gamba for this luscious program of music by Purcell, Couperin, and Carissimi in themes of love, loss, faith, and philosophy.
featuring
Jessica Beebe - soprano, Rebecca Myers - soprano, Leon Schelhase - harpsichord, Sarah Cunningham - viola da gamba
Variant 6 will perform in the ballroom of the Hill-Physick House. Doors open at 6:00PM for self-guided tours of the house with the concert starting at 7:00PM. Wine and cheese provided for your enjoyment before and after the performance.
Filament - Bound up in Love
March 8, 2024 | 7:00PM | Hill-Physick House
With "Bound up in Love," Filament embarks on a new collaboration with Franco-American soprano Alice Teyssier, centering female composers and musicians in a program that interrogates our collective understanding of women in music history and the ways we tell women’s stories through mythology. In this project with Teyssier, who is equally acclaimed in the fields of early and contemporary music, we use the juxtaposition of different national and compositional styles to cast a fresh light on timeless human issues like love, grief, longing, and motherhood, creating space to tell ancient stories in a new way.
Makaris - Out of the Western Isles
March 15, 2024 | 7:00PM | Powel House
“OUT OF THE WESTERN ISLES:
the Celtic Influence on Baroque Parlor Music”
A celebration of the traditional music of Scotland and Ireland that captured the fancy of 17th and 18th-century continental Europe. Whether arranging dozens of songs for parlor performance, or incorporating Celtic rhythms and tonalities into their work in subtle ways, composers from Bach to Beethoven made use of the rich ethnomusicological outpouring of folk material from the western isles during these two centuries. Makaris shares this repertoire, alongside pieces by Scottish Baroque composers, traditional tunes, and beloved works by the famed 18th-century Irish harpist and bard, Turlough O’Carolan. Hailed as, “...a beautiful intersection of folk melodies and dance rhythms with the airy textures, refined gestures, and virtuosic asides of the Galant style” (Early Music America), Makaris brings together Baroque and folk musicians to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, HIP-style.
Matthias Maute - Telemann: Twitter and Tweets
April 18, 2024 | 7:00PM | Powel House
Matthias Maute-recorder and traverso
G.Ph Telemann was one of the most inspired composers in music history, delivering high flying music to literally all instruments. His fantasias for recorder solo are like short messages from the 18th century.
Matthias Maute has assembled a program, where these baroque tweets are in dialogue with other composers throughout music history, from Machaut to Maute himself.
Obviously JS Bach, a good friend and colleague of Telemann, can’t miss in this fast paced musical conversation across time and space.
Night Music - Haydn’s Princely Music
May 30, 2024 | 7:00PM | Powel House
While in the service of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, Haydn composed almost 200 works for his patron to play on the baryton. This instrument resembles the viola da gamba but includes an extra set of sympathetic strings that can be plucked by hand. We place the oft-overlooked baryton at the center of a program that includes duos and trios by Haydn, his Esterházy colleague Andreas Lidl, and the “Swedish Mozart” Joseph Martin Kraus.
Featuring Karen Dekker, violin and viola; Eve Miller, cello; Heather Miller Lardin, baryton; and Steven Zohn, flute