Music Before 1800

Our concerts last season concluding Before the end of fy23 were absolutely first-rate, and we are particularly proud of our american ensemble partners who have bounced back with such polish from the pandemic. This was our first season in our new leadership team of bill barclay and robby meese. We rebranded our organization, retooled the website, created new partnerships and announced our 49th season. Our concerts in fy23 were as follows:boston camerata launched our season with an appealingly diverse celebration of american spirituals on october 2nd: we'll be there: american spirituals, black and white, 1800-1900. This was our first program specifically dedicated to american roots.vox luminis returned from belgium on october 23rd to present an exceptionally rare exploration of j.s. Bach's teachers and progenitors, called bach: the arnstadt connection. Nyc's own juilliard415, the conservatory's historical Music program, presented the splendors of dresden in november, again featuring a rash of unfamiliar composers performed expertly by the new generation of period Music specialists, conducted by the british dynamo laurence cummings.the new nyc ensemble twelfth night dazzled our audiences in january with a sparkling program of handel that absolutely took our breath away. Such platforming of young up-and-coming artists, and featuring them alongside the industry greats, is one of the many things that makes Music Before 1800 so special.we next featured two american ensembles from out-of-state. Les dlices from cleveland performed a deep examination of Music from guadaloupe and haiti, including our first performance of the Music of joseph bologne, chevalier de saint-georges, the first major composer of african descent.this program was quickly followed by boston's blue heron performing heartbreaking 16th century italian madrigals, with expert narration in italian and english. Rounding out the year were cappella pratensis from the netherlands on april 16, and tiburtina ensemble from prague on may 7. These will both be captured as well.we were honoured by a large private donation last year that is worth mentioning - a gift of $100k from the russell oberlin foundation. Our audiences are mostly retirees, and we lost so many of those during the pandemic due to both illness and concern. The oberlin foundation grant guarantees that we can operate through our 50th season in '24-25.