PORT TOWNSEND — Baroque lutenist Oleg Timofeyev and baroque flautist Jeffrey Cohen will play reconstructions of music by Silvius Leopold Weiss at 2 p.m. Sunday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church as part of the 2018 Salish Sea Early Music Festival.
Admission will be by donation at the church — $15, $20 or $25 via a goodwill offering. Those 18 and younger will be admitted free at the church at 1020 Jefferson St.
Weiss is considered the most prolific and highly esteemed lutenist of the Baroque era, rivaling Johan Sebastian Bach in improvisational skill, according to a news release. Weiss worked for more than three decades at the court of the Elector of Saxony in Dresden, Germany, with flute virtuoso Pierre-Gabriel Buffardin.
Although he wrote much music for obbligato, or fully written-out, lute and flute, the flute part has unfortunately been lost but has been reconstructed for this performance.
The program also will include music for obbligato lute and flute by Ernst Gottlieb Baron and Friedrich Wilhelm Rust.
Originally from Moscow and now living in Iowa City, Iowa, Timofeyev holds a Master of Arts degree in early music performance from the University of Southern California and a doctorate in performance practice from Duke University.
He taught himself to play the guitar as a child, supervised by his mother, a professional cellist, and his grandmother, a pianist.
He took guitar lessons from Kamil Frauchi, the most influential guitar teacher in Moscow of the time and the father of the internationally-known guitarist Alexandr Frauchi. Since 1983, Timofeyev has performed early music on lute and guitar.
In 1989 this interest brought him to the U.S., where he continued his studies. Besides his background in Russian guitar music, Timofeyev has been rediscovering his musical Jewish and Gypsy roots.
The recipient of several Iowa Arts Council grants to produce recordings and tours of this music, Timofeyev currently performs a program of Russian-Jewish music with his mother.
In the fall of 2004, Timofeyev founded a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering international awareness of Russian culture, the International Academy for Russian Music, Arts, and Culture.
Cohan has received international acclaim both as a modern flutist and as one of the foremost specialists on transverse flutes from the Renaissance through the early 19th century.
He 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.
First Prize winner of the Olga Koussevitzky Young Artist Competition in New York and recipient of grants from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music and the French Government, he has performed in more than 25 countries.
For more information, go to www.salishsea festival.org/porttownsend or call St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 360-385-0770.
