Salish Sea Early Music Festival Returns

Thursday, April 13, 7 p.m., Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church

— from Jeffrey Cohen —

The fifth 2017 Salish Sea Early Music Festival performance,THE ART OF MODULATION, features innovative baroque chamber music for flute, two violins and harpsichord featuring “The Art of Modulation” by François André Danican Philidor on Thursday, Apr. 13, 2017 at 7 p.m. at the Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church at 107 Enchanted Forest Road in Eastsound, with flutist Jeffrey Cohan playing the baroque one-keyed flute, Linda Melsted on baroque violin, Romaric Pokorny on baroque violin, and Jonathan Oddie on harpsichord.

François André Danican Philidor (1726-1795), the son of Louis XIV’s celebrated music librarian, was world chess champion for almost five decades, from 1747 to 1795. Philidor’s six Sinfonias comprising “The Art of Modulation,” written in 1755, demonstrate not only his technical prowess, as in Berlin in 1751 when he simultaneously played three chess games blindfolded and won them all. They explore the art of transitioning between musical tonalities and expressive colors and developing new modes of musical expression. Philidor builds an intense, pure harmonic environment that twists and modulates, transporting and astonishing the listener. Philidor was known primarily as a composer of opéra comique, and “The Art of Modulation” is his major surviving instrumental work.

Three Sinfonias from Philidor’s work will be complemented with music from Italy and Germany: concerti for flute and strings by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Georg Philipp Telemann, in continuance of the festivities for Telemann’s 250th anniversary.

Complete San Juan Islands performance schedule for “The Art of Modulation:”

• Lopez Island: Wednesday, Apr. 12 at 7 p.m.
  Grace Church · 70 Sunset Lane · (360) 468-3477
• Orcas Island: Thursday, Apr. 13 at 7 p.m.
  Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church · 107 Enchanted Forest Road · (360) 378-6632
• San Juan Island: Friday, Apr. 14 at 7 p.m.
  Brickworks · 150 Nichols Street in Friday Harbor

The 2017 Salish Sea Early Music Festival, for the seventh year featuring the some of the finest period instrument specialists from the North America and Europe, presents seven contrasting performances of chamber music from the Renaissance through the time of Beethoven on period instruments in Eastsound, this year with three musicians from Germany, one from Montreal and others from around the USA and the Pacific Northwest. The festival has presented countless first performances in modern times of period instrument renditions of early works. Additional information is available at www.salishseafestival.org/orcas.