Salish Sea Early Music Presents Shakespeare in Italy Performance

Sunday, March 11, 1 p.m., Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church

— from Jeffrey Cohen of Salish Sea Early Music Festival —

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival presents a program of mostly Italian Four-Part Canzonas entitled Shakespeare in Italy with dulcian (baroque bassoon) player Anna Marsh, renaissance transverse flutist Jeffrey Cohan, violinist Courtney Kuroda, and violist Stephen Creswell.

This program explores a unique language of expressive nuance from an all but forgotten musical arena, performed on the period instruments that bring this music to life, including renaissance transverse flute and dulcian, or renaissance bassoon, which vary greatly in tone and technique from instruments used just a few decades later. This quartet of flute, bassoon, violin and viola is representative of the “broken consorts”, made up of more than one family of instruments, which were once common place. 16th-century vocal four-part songs inspired Italian composers to write these instrumental four-part canzonas, which blossomed in print and performance between 1580 and 1628. Among the composers from Shakespeare’s lifetime to be represented are Floriano Canale, Andrea Cima, Giacomo Filippo Biumi, and Fiorentio Maschera, along with Hugh Ashton and other English and French composers.

The concert takes place on Sunday afternoon, March 11 at 1 p.m. at the Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church at 107 Enchanted Forest Road in Eastsound. For additional information please see https://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.

Complete San Juan Islands performance schedule for Shakespeare in Italy:

Orcas Island: Sunday afternoon, March 11, 2018 at 1 p.m.
· Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church · 107 Enchanted Forest Road in Eastsound · (360) 378-6632

San Juan Island: Sunday evening, March 11, 2018 at 7 p.m.
· Brickworks · 150 Nichols Street in Friday Harbor

Lopez Island: Monday evening, March 12, 2018 at 7 p.m.
· Grace Church · 70 Sunset Lane · (360) 468-3477

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.