Event

A Tale of Two Italian Cities

chamber music from Venice and Naples

With Tempesta di Mare Chamber Players:

Gwyn Roberts, recorder

Emlyn Ngai & Rebecca Harris, violin

Lisa Terry, viola da gamba

Richard Stone, theorbo

Adam Pearl, harpsichord

ABOUT

The University of Pennsylvania's Department of Music and the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts are proud to present our third jointly sponsored music series Music in the Pavilion. Taking place in the beautiful sixth-floor Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion in Van Pelt Library, the series showcases an array of professional and international musicians, not only performing gems from standard concert repertoires but also premiering works found only in the wealth of materials—print and manuscript—held in the Kislak Center's collections. Enriching the experience of each concert, attendees will have the opportunity to hear brief lectures by eminent scholars and graduate students that will contextualize the music historically, socially, and culturally.

[No pre-concert talk is scheduled for this concert]

PROGRAM

Giovanni Valentini, Two Sonatas (early 17th century)

Dario Castello, Sonata No. 4 from Sonate concertante in stil moderno (Venice, 1629)

Giovanni Legrenzi, Two Sonatas from La Cetra, Op 10 (Venice, 1673)

Antonio Vivaldi, Concerto in A minor, RV 108 (Venice, 1720’s)

Pietro Marchitelli, Sonata a quattro no. 2 in F (Naples, ca. 1710)

Francesco Mancini, Concerto in A minor (Naples, by 1725)

Andrea Falconieri, from Canzone… con il basso continuo (Naples, 1650)

Admission is free; REGISTER HERE

TEMPESTA DI MARE

Fanfare magazine recently hailed Tempesta di Mare for its “abundant energy, immaculate ensemble, and undeniable sense of purpose.” Led by directors Gwyn Roberts and Richard Stone with concertmaster Emlyn Ngai, Tempesta performs baroque music on baroque instruments with a repertoire that ranges from staged opera to chamber music. The group performs all orchestral repertoire without a conductor, as was the practice when this music was new.

Tempesta’s Philadelphia Concert Series, noted by the Philadelphia Inquirer for its “off-the-grid chic factor,” emphasizes creating a sense of discovery for artists and audience alike. Launched in 2002, the series has included over 35 modern “world premieres” of lost or forgotten baroque masterpieces, leading the Inquirer to describe it as “an old-music group that acts like a new-music group, by pushing the cutting edge back rather than forward.” Its supporters include the Pew Charitable Trusts, the William Penn Foundation, the Presser Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

In a marketplace dominated by European ensembles, Tempesta is the only American baroque music group to record for the prestigious British label Chandos. Current releases are Weiss: Lute Concerti (2004), Handel: Flaming Rose (2007), Scarlatti: Cantatas and Chamber Music (2010), Fasch: Orchestral Music, vol. 1 (2008), vol. 2 (2011) and vol. 3 (2012), Bach: Trio Sonatas, BWV 525–530 (2014), Mancini: Sonatas for a Flute, (2014), and Comédie et Tragédie: French baroque orchestral music for the theater, vol. 1 (2015), vol. 2 (2016). 2018 saw two additional discs: Janitsch: Rediscoveries from the Sara Levy Collection, and the first complete recording of Georg Philipp Telemann’s Concerti-en-Suite.

National broadcasts of live performances include SymphonyCast, Performance Today, Sunday Baroque and Harmonia. Live concert recordings are distributed worldwide via the European Broadcasting Union, a global alliance of public service media organizations, with members in 56 countries in Europe and beyond.

International appearances have included the Prague Spring Festival, the Göttingen Handel Festival, the Mendelssohn-Remise Berlin and the International Fasch Festival in Zerbst. Recent North American appearances have included a return engagement at the Frick Collection and the National Gallery of Art. Other notable presenters have included the Miami Bach Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, Abbey Bach Festival, Whitman College, Cornell Concerts, the Yale Collection, the Flagler Museum and the Garmany Series, Hartford. In March 2020 Tempesta will be the first non-European ensemble to perform at the renowned International Telemann Festival in Magdeburg, Germany.