2020 Concert Season (text)

(for brochure format go here.)

Baroque Festival Concerts for 2020
Medieval Roots

~ International Flowerings ~

Santa Cruz Baroque Festival

2020 ~ 47th Season

Pre-Season Blast

Fire & Grace Gala Art Party

Friday, October 11, 2019 ~ 4:00-6:00pm ~ R. Blitzer Art Gallery

Bluegrass & Folk meet Baroque @TGIF Happy Hour

Fire & Grace, a virtuosic collaboration between guitarist William Coulter and violinist Edwin Huizinga, explores the connective musical elements of classical, folk, and contemporary traditions from around the world. Their repertoire is vast, ranging from Bach to Vivaldi, tango to Celtic tunes, traditional Bulgarian to American ddle tunes and waltzes, all played with a sense of discovery and commitment to these diverse traditions. They’ve been selling out their Carmel Bach Festival concerts, and getting rave reviews of their recent CD and tour of New Zealand, so don’t miss this chance to hear them close to home in an exciting art gallery setting with wine and delicious food treats to suit every taste!

Limited tickets are available to this fun-raising fund-raiser, so get yours early to secure your spot. $45 presale and $50 at door.

Concert I

In a Medieval Garden

Saturday, February 1, 2020 ~ 7:30pm ~ Holy Cross Church

Vajra Voices – 5 singers, Medieval harp and bells, directed by Karen Clark, contralto with Mary Springfels, vielle and citole

Hildegard of Bingen, Medieval French music (Trouvère Songs, Guillaume de Machaut)

The roots of our beloved classical music spring from prehistory, from the primordial forest of sacred chant and sung poetry illuminated by an occasional star like Saint Hildegard of Bingen, the Twelfth Century mystic called The Sibyl of the Rhine. Visionary composers based in Nôtre Dame de Paris gave us intricately woven multi-part sacred music, while aristocratic troubadours and trouvères such as Guiot de Dijon, a Thirteenth Century Burgundian poet, sang of courtly love. A century later, Guillaume de Machaut, the last artist equally skilled in poetry and music, created a unique Gothic vocal architecture.

A Meet-the-Artist reception following this event welcomes donors, season ticket and flex-pass holders.

Buy tickets to this concert here

Concert II

Renaissance Roots~ American Flowerings

Sunday, February 23, 2020 ~ 3pm ~ UCSC Recital Hall

UCSC Chamber Singers directed by Michael McGushin Endurance Gospel Quartet

In the Renaissance, vocal polyphony and close harmony reached an apex of technical perfection, and their primacy in music culture was at its height. This Golden Age of choral music coincided with the first wave of European colonization of Africa and the Americas. Everywhere they went, the singing styles Europeans brought along were preserved and transformed by colonists, indigenous people and the enslaved, and strains of their musical influence has persisted through the centuries to the present day. In North America, close harmonic singing and Baroque ‘fugueing’ evolved into Sacred Harp psalmody. Following the Civil War, creative blends in opposing contexts – North/South, urban/rural, classical/pop, White/Black – gave birth to various uniquely American styles, such as Tin-Pan Alley, Barbershop and Gospel. This concert features Renaissance sacred music along with a selection of its flowerings across four centuries, with prize-winning ensembles performing in diverse genres – sacred harp, classical choral, and gospel.

Buy tickets to this concert here

Concert III

Spanish Roots ~ Mexican Flowerings

Sunday, March 8, 2020 ~ 3pm ~ Peace United Church

Vocalists and Baroque strings, with Vlada Moran, organ, Linda Burman-Hall, harpsichord, William Faulkner, Jalisco harp UCSC’s Mariachi Eterno, with Russell Rodriguez

Perhaps the most fertile region of multicultural fusion within Europe was Iberia, where prior to 1492, Spanish, Jewish and Arab culture collaborated, overlapped and even melted together over the centuries of Moorish occupation. Our program features the kaleidoscope of Spanish music that was exported to the Americas from the time of Columbus forward. Organ, harp, harpsichord and violin were among the instruments that crossed over, preserving Spanish culture while also moving in new directions. In the Baroque and Classic periods, charming art music using Spanish instruments was produced by composers of the Metropolitan Cathedral and the cloistered young women of Colegio de San Miguel de Belem. Jalisco harp and Mariachi are spirited Mexican flowerings of the original Spanish roots.

Buy tickets to this concert here

Concert IV

In an English Garden (Wildcat Viols)

Sunday, April 5, 2020 ~ 3pm ~ UCSC Recital Hall

Joanna Blendulf, Julie Jeffrey, Annalisa Pappano and Elisabeth Reed Fantasies, Suites & Sonatas for viol quartet by Purcell, Locke & Legrenzi

As perfectly crafted tonal illusions, Seventeenth Century viol fantasies
are a curious and wild ride. Like an ant running over a patchwork quilt toward unknowable destinations, this ‘quixotic’ form passes deftly through improvisatory moods and textures, by turns entertaining, distracting, and compelling. Employing newly developed compositional techniques to engage human emotions, fantasies had the power induce panic or inspire haunting trepidations in the listener. Even jolly passages are tinged with bittersweet, like in so much of English music.

Like guitars, viols have six strings tuned in perfect fourths and major thirds, but are bowed expressively like violins and cellos. For our program, Wildcat Viols celebrate their their first album with a complete performance of the Fantazias by Henry Purcell, complete viol sonatas of Giovanni Legrenzi, and selections from Matthew Locke’s ‘Magnifick Consort of Four Parts.’

Gather Ye Rosebuds while Ye May!

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Concert V

J.S. Bach Celebration ~ by Candlelight

Saturday, April 25, 2020 ~ 7:30pm ~ Peace United Church

Edwin Huizinga & Grijda Spiri, Baroque Violins Vlada Moran, Pipe Organ
Linda Burman-Hall, Harpsichord & Artistic Director

Eventually, all sound-streams lead to Bach, whose name in German literally does mean ‘stream’, the joining of cooperating currents owing confidently and with force. Our concert takes place in traditional Baroque candlelight, while the metaphorical light we shine on familiar works is quite new. A Bach organ trio will be played not on the organ but by two violins, harpsichord and cello, and one organ work of J. S. Bach turns out to have been transcribed from an Italian master he much admired. Most shocking perhaps, Bach’s D Minor Toccata and Fugue, accepted for more than 250 years as an iconic organ work, will be played on the violin, which may have been the composer’s original intention.

A Meet-the-Artist reception following this event welcomes donors, season ticket and flex-pass holders.

Buy tickets to this concert here