Salish Sea Early Music Festival concert on Sunday

PORT TOWNSEND — The 2024 Salish Sea Early Music Festival will present early chamber music on period instruments on Sunday.

“Simphonie Nouvelle plays Louis IX and J.S. Bach” will be at 2 p.m. Sunday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 1020 Jefferson St. in Port Townsend

Admission will be a suggested donation of $20 to $30 (a free will offering). Those 18 and younger will be admitted free.

Simphonie Nouvelle is comprised of baroque guitarist Stephen Stubbs, co-director of the Boston Early Music Festival and Pacific Music Works; and viola da gambist Susie Napper, founder and director emeritus of the Montreal Baroque Festival; along with flutist and Salish Sea Early Music Festival director Jeffrey Cohan.

Sunday’s program will feature many of the late 17th and early 18th-century guitarists, viola da gambists, flutists and other composers associated with the musical establishment of Louis XIV, alongside the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Louis XIV gathered the finest musicians of France at his court in Versailles, Cohan said in a press release.

This program will feature many of these baroque superstars, including guitarists Francesco Corbetta (1615-1681) and Robert de Visée (c.1655-1732), viola da gambists Sainte Colombe (c.1640-c. 1700), Marin Marais (1656-1728) and Jacques Morel (c.1680-1740), flutist Michel de la Barre (c.1675-1745), and composers Élisabeth Claude Jacquet de La Guerre (1665-1729) and François Couperin (1668-1733). The Sonata in E Minor, BWV 1034 by Johann Sebastian Bach will be performed as well.

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival presents early chamber music on period instruments around Salish Sea and in Eastern Washington. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and an affiliate organization of Early Music America.

The next concerts in the Salish Sea Early Music Festival will be at 2 p.m. March 2, noon March 22, 2 p.m. April 7, 2 p.m. May 5, 2 p.m. May 26 and 2 p.m. June 30.

For more information, see www.salishseafestival.org/porttownsend.