Salish Sea Early Music Festival shares journey through Europe with Dr. Burney

— from Jeffrey Cohan for Salish Sea Early Music Festival —

We so miss sharing the remainder of our season with you! … but are delighted to witness the many creative ways people are reaching out to protect and invigorate their neighbors near and far.

We are pleased to have you as part of our fellowship of musicians and music lovers! The free will donations you provide at the door comprise the bulk of our funding. Some of you have generously donated additional needed support which applies to the whole season. As just three-sevenths of our performances took place this year, and knowing that many of our musicians have lost the majority of their income during these months, we felt it appropriate to provide each musician a small but significant one-time COVID-19 bonus to lighten this burden … and we’re particularly thankful to our special donors, all of whom have enabled this opportunity. There remain additional funds which will provide a valuable resource for next year’s festival.

We look forward to seeing you in 2021! In the meantime we invite you to embark on a Journey through Europe with Dr. Burney, through the reference recording of our final performance on March 10 in Seattle to be found through this link.

Handel tussles with a local singer at the Golden Falcon and encounters Dr. Burney while enjoying a dish of coffee at the Exchange Coffee House. On to Paris! Dr. Burney marvels at composer Balbastre’s exquisite harpsichord depicting Rameau’s opera Castor et Pollux and Rameau himself, who Burney encountered a few years earlier. In Venice Dr. Burney meditates on the other-worldly attributes of Antonio Vivaldi, he has an opportunity to hear Frederick the Great play his flute in Berlin, and receives accolades from Haydn.

Susie as Dr. Burney is wonderful! With much deliberation we fashioned a lovely suite from Rameau’s opera Castor et Pollux, perfectly suiting our instruments and revealing Rameau at his best, inspired by Burney’s account of Balbastre’s harpsichord and the opera and ballet transcriptions for chamber music performances for Louis XIV (constituting our first concert this season). Also included are sonatas by Vivaldi (cello), Handel and Frederick the Great (flute) and Haydn (solo and accompanied harpsichord). Timings and full program available.