PORT TOWNSEND — The first of eight 2024 Salish Sea Early Music Festival programs, Three Centuries: Guitar, Lute and Flute, will feature German guitarist and lutenist Michael Freimuth on theorbo (a long-necked lute) and renaissance guitar, and Jeffrey Cohan on both renaissance and baroque transverse flutes.
Presented in collaboration with St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the concert will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 1020 Jefferson St. in Port Townsend.
Admission is by suggested donation (a free-will offering) of $20 to $30. Those 18 and younger will be admitted free. All are welcome regardless of donation.
For more information, see www.salishseafestival.org/porttownsend.
This program offers a journey through the music for guitar, lute and flute of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, including elaborate jazzed-up versions of well-known songs of the time.
The program will include works by 16th century composers Diego Ortiz, William Byrd, Giovanni Bassano and Girolamo Dalla Casa; 17th century composers Giovanni Paulo Cima, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Giovanni Battista Fontana, Bartolomé de Selma y Salaverde and Giovanni Battista Buonamenti; and 18th century composers Arcangelo Corelli and André Chéron.
Performing will be baroque guitarist Stephen Stubbs, harpsichordist Elisabeth Wright, viola da gambist Susie Napper, and violinists David Greenberg and Carrie Krause, along with others including guitarist Oleg Timofeyev, violinist Elisabeth Phelps, violinist/violist Lindsey Strand-Polyak, violist Victoria Gunn and cellist Adaiha MacAdam-Somer.
Irene Roldan, a young Spanish harpsichordist, comes from Basel Switzerland to perform an innovative program of Spanish works for solo harpsichord from the baroque era in selected cities alongside a second program of chamber music by Bach.
Elizaveta Miller, a Russian harpsichord professor at McGill in Montreal, will join for a program of concerti with strings.
Freimuth comes from northern Germany, where he is continually active with period instrument groups in Europe (currently recording Heinrich Schütz in Vienna with Roland Wilson).
Cohan has performed as a soloist in 25 countries as one of the foremost specialists on all transverse flutes from the Renaissance through the present. He is artistic director of the Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival in Washington, D.C., the Black Hawk Chamber Music Festival in Illinois and Iowa, and the Salish Sea Early Music Festival.
The Salish Sea Early Music Festival presents early chamber music on period instruments around Salish Sea and in Eastern Washington, and is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and an affiliate organization of Early Music America.
More concerts are planned Feb. 12-19, Feb. 22-March 3, March 19-26, April 6-14, April 30-May 10, May 22-29, June 23-25 and June 27-July 7.
