Renaissance Songs Without Words in Upcoming Salish Sea Early Music Festival

Saturday, April 14, 7 p.m., Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church

— from Jeffrey Cohan —

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival presents Songs without Words: 1550 to 1750 with Montreal’s viola da gambist Susie Napper and renaissance and baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan.

An intimate tribute to the power of poetry and song as rendered instrumentally, this program will include Renaissance two-part settings of 16th-century French songs, virtuoso diminutions for viola da gamba and flute by Bartholmeo de Selma y Salaverde on Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s beautiful madrigal Vestiva e colli, selections from Giovanni Paulo Cima’s Concerti Ecclesiastici, examples of the luscious Baroque airs de cour from the time of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, and favorite Scottish and Irish airs as rendered by 18th-century instrumentalists. Also music by Johann Sebastian Bach, James Oswald and Georg Friderick Handel.

The concert takes place on Saturday evening, April 14 at 7 p.m. at the Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church. For additional information see www.salishseafestival.org/orcas or call (360) 376-6683. Admission is by suggested donation: $15, $20 or $25 (a free will offering), and those 18 & under are free.

Cellist, gambist and continuo player par excellence, SUSIE NAPPER is known for her colorful, even controversial performances of both solo and chamber repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries. Having spent her childhood in an artistic milieu in London, in her late teens she moved to New York to study at the Juilliard School, then to the Paris Conservatoire. San Francisco followed, where, after a foray into contemporary music, she co-founded and directed the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.

Since then she has spent two decades with a foot on either side of the Atlantic as principal cellist with several groups including Stradivaria in France, the Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal and Les Boréades in Montreal, and the Trinity Consort of Portland. Her concert tours have taken her as far afield as China, Japan, New Zealand, India, the Middle East, as well as most European countries. As a member of the very active viol duo Les Voix humaines, she has discovered a new facet of musical expression in the form of musical arranging, thus providing an endlessly fascinating new repertoire for two viols.

Susie Napper founded the Festival international Montréal Baroque which is presented in Montreal in June since 2001. She teaches at McGill University as well as in Copenhagen, and was awarded the «Prix Opus» 2002 for «Personality of the year» by the Conseil québécois de la musique. Her recordings, which include most of the known repertoire for two viols, can be heard on Harmonia Mundi, EMI, Erato, ADDA, CBC Records, Naxos, and most notably on the ATMA label.

Complete San Juan Islands performance schedule for Songs Without Words: 1550-1750:

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

The 2017 Salish Sea Early Music Festival, for the eighth 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 on Orcas Island, this year with musicians from Germany, Montreal and all 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.