Celebrate Bastille Day at the Boomeria Organ and Brass Extravaganza!
Featuring captivating music, dance performances, and exquisite wines.
Our annual celebration of Bastille Day, replete with wine, dance, and music of ages past is not to be missed! Join us on July 8, 2023, from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm at the stunning Chapel Royale in Bonny Doon.
Preston Boomer’s unique estate in the Bonny Doon redwoods houses a large Baroque-style, tracker-action pipe organ, on which expert organists perform their art. The program will feature several artists on the Baroque tracker pipe organ, as well as organ playing by the Santa Cruz Brass Ensemble.
For the first time ever, expert costumed English Country Dancers are on the program with 17th Century popular dance music accompaniment by the Bonny Doon Baroque Ensemble led by Martin Gaskell.
Bonny Doon Baroque will also play viols, recorders and crumhorns in a set in the Chapel Royal. Featured pipe organists playing the Baroque tracker organ in the chapel royal are: William Visscher, Ann Thiermann, Robert Jackson and Bruce Sawhill. Dr. Sawhill, a systems scientist as well as musician, will play Bach organ solos and antiphonal ensemble works from the birth of the Baroque by Giovanni Gabrieli with the Santa Cruz Brass. The combined forces will also perform the stunning ‘Ceremonial Music for Brass and Organ’ by Martin Gaskell, an award-winning composer who is well known as a popular Astronomy lecturer at UCSC. Ann Thiermann, a highly regarded visual artist, will play organ selections by Dietrich Buxtehude, who Bach greatly admired, and also a Handel Sonata with violinist Brian Johnston, co-President of the Baroque Festival.
A special feature of BOOMERIA is the ‘organ crawl’ — the chance for everyone with an adventurous spirit to get inside (or beneath) the complex mechanism of the Baroque tracker organ while it is being played, seeing the traditional 18th Century style moving mechanical parts, and hearing the hundreds of different kinds of wood and metal pipes sounding all around you.
Delicious snacks and fine wines complete the festivities.
Please note that parking at the venue is limited, so we ask that you plan accordingly.
IMPORTANT: Please note that parking on Verde Drive is prohibited because the road must remain open to fire trucks. Following the disastrous CZU fire in 2020, fire codes are strictly enforced. Hiking in is inevitable for the able-bodied. Attendees who cannot walk a distance can be dropped off at the main gate. Plan to arrive very early to allow time for walking several hundred yards. Please follow the directions of signage and the volunteers guiding parking.
Your attendance supports our annual operations and the future of Baroque music in Santa Cruz. Help us continue to bring musical excellence to our community!
Tickets are $59 presale and $70 at the door. Click HERE to purchase tickets in advance!