PORT TOWNSEND — The Salish Sea Early Music Festival will present “The Able Virtuoso,” part of its Spring Baroque Festival, with three contrasting performances of early orchestral and chamber music on period instruments at 2 p.m. Saturday.
“The Able Virtuoso” will feature violinist Carrie Krause from Bozeman, Mont., lutenist John Lenti and baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan in a program of baroque trio sonatas for violin and flute with theorbo (a very long-necked lute) and baroque guitar by 18th-century French, Italian and German composers.
Admission to the concert at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1020 Jefferson St., will be $15, $20 or $25 in a free-will offering. People 18 and younger will be admitted free.
Johann Mattheson’s “The Able Virtuoso,” published in Hamburg in 1720, sets the tone for this program of virtuoso trio sonatas inspired by Corelli and the fusion of Italian, French and German styles, which were quite distinct in the 18th century.
Music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Archangelo Corelli, Pietro Locatelli, Antoine Dornel and Joseph Bodin de Boismortier will be featured in this virtuoso survey of the great variety of musical styles of 18th century Europe.
Krause, baroque violinist, is concertmaster of the Bozeman Symphony in Montana and New Trinity Baroque in Portland, Ore.
She performs regularly as soloist and ensemble member for many of the most important period instrument ensembles throughout the United States and has performed throughout Europe. Raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, she resides in Bozeman where she performs with the Meritage String Quartet and teaches a studio of 35 students.
Lenti performs on theorbo, lute, archlute and baroque guitar with with such groups as Apollo’s Fire, Haymarket Opera Company, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Seattle Opera and Seraphic Fire, among many other orchestral and chamber groups.
Cohan won the Erwin Bodky Award in Boston, and first place in the Flanders Festival International Concours Musica Antiqua for Ensembles in Brugge, Belgium, with lutenist Stephen Stubbs.
Also on the Spring Music Festival schedule is Bach and Vivaldi Concerti at 2 p.m. May 26.
That concert will feature Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, one of the most well-loved orchestral works of the baroque, with soloists Jonathan Oddie (harpsichord), Krause (violin) and Cohan (flute), along with the Salish Sea Early Music Festival Chamber Orchestra.
For the eighth year, the festival features period instrument specialists from North America and Europe, presenting seven performances in Port Townsend and elsewhere around the Salish Sea of chamber music from the Renaissance through the time of Beethoven on period instruments.
Additional information is available at www.salishsea festival.org/porttownsend.
