Salish Sea Early Music Festival goes for Baroque in upcoming concert

Saturday, May 11, 7 p.m., Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church

— from Jeffrey Cohan —

World-renowned early music specialists viola da gambist Susie Napper from Montreal and harpsichordist Elisabeth Wright from Bloomington, Indiana will join baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan in Baroque Trio JEST, presented by the Salish Sea Early Music Festival in a program of music by French baroque composers François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau and Marin Marais among others on Saturday, May 11 at 7 p.m. at the Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church at 107 Enchanted Forest Road in Eastsound.  Jeffrey, Elisabeth and Susie’s Trio “JEST,” pictured above from a concert program from Darmstadt Germany in 1979, marks its 40th year of performances together in 2019.

About the Artists

Viola da gamba and cello soloist and continuo player par excellence, Susie Napper grew up in London and studied at the Juilliard School in New York and the Paris Conservatoire. She co-founded and directed the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, has been principal cellist with 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 Les Voix humaines she has recorded most of the known repertoire for two viols, which can be heard on Harmonia Mundi, EMI, Erato, ADDA, CBC Records, Naxos, and on the ATMA label. Susie Napper teaches at McGill University and at the Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, Denmark, and founded the Festival international Montréal Baroque which is presented in Montreal in June since 2001. She was awarded the «Prix Opus» 2002 for «Personality of the year» by the Conseil Québécois de la Musique.

Harpsichordist and fortepianist Elisabeth Wright has appeared as soloist with Tafelmusik, Lyra, Seattle, Portland and Indianapolis Baroque Orchestras. Professor at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Wright is in frequent demand for master classes and seminars, and is noted for her expertise in the art of basso continuo improvisation.

Following graduate studies with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam, she has maintained a distinguished career performing for many of the major early music festivals in North and South America and Europe. A member of Duo Geminiani with violinist Stanley Ritchie, she has performed and recorded with Música Ficta, and with many artists of international renown. Ms. Wright has been a reviewer for Early Keyboard Journal, was a founding member of The Seattle Early Music Guild and Bloomington Early Music, and has served on the board of Early Music America and as panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, PEW, and PennPat. She has been broadcast on four continents and has recorded for Classic Masters, Milan-Jade, Focus, Arion, Arts Music, Centaur, and Música Ficta Recordings.

Flutist Jeffrey Cohan is artistic director of the Salish Sea Early Music Festival, has won the most prestigious awards for performers of early music on period instruments in Boston and Brugges, Belgium and has performed in 25 countries.

Please see www.salishseafestival.org/orcas for additional information. Admission is by suggested donation: $15, $20 or $25 (a free will offering), and those 18 & under are free.