Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Photo by Elizabeth HedrickJoy, longing, haunting laments, and the hunt to find love: Monteverdi’s music brings to life the anticipation of battle, the rapture of love and the war between the sexes.  The period-instrument ensemble NYS Baroque concludes its 2011-12 season with all this and more in “Songs of Love and War” on Saturday, May 5, at the Unitarian Church at Aurora and Buffalo Streets. Bring a loved one and enjoy.

The dramatic cantata Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda represents the culmination of Monteverdi’s musical and dramatic exploration.  The libretto recounts the tragic love story of the Crusader Tancredi, who has fallen in love with the maid Clorinda; she travels disguised as a warrior, and Tancredi mortally wounds her in battle by mistake. The music is packed with heartbreaking moments of tenderness and grief. Also included in the program will be Monteverdi's Lamento della ninfa and other vocal works, plus instrumental music by Castello, Cima, Rognoni and others.

"Everyone loves Monteverdi opera, and it's great fun.  What people don't realize is that his more intimate works pack the same kind of punch.  Il combattimento is an incredibly intense mini-opera with all the power and emotional content of a larger work – with just three singers, strings and continuo," says Artistic Director, Heather Miller Lardin.

Led by Ms. Miller Lardin, with concertmaster Julie Andrijeski and Deborah Fox, theorbo, NYS Baroque will once again gather together an impressivelist of performers playing historic instruments including strings, lirone, violone, harpsichord, and theorbo, with vocal soloists Laura Heimes, Aaron Sheehan, Sumner Thompson, and Steven Hrycelak.

Laura Heimes has collaborated with many of the leading figures in early music and has performed at many of the Early Music Festivals around the country. December 2003 marked her Carnegie Hall debut in Handel's Messiah with the Masterwork Chorus; in December 2011 she appeared in the acclaimed staged production of the same work with the Pittsburgh Symphony under Maestro Honeck.

In demand as soloist and ensemble singer, Steven Hrycelak appears frequently with the New York Choral Artists, the New York Virtuoso Singers, Early Music NewYork, Vox, and many other organizations; this is his NYS Baroque debut.

Aaron Sheehan made his professional debut in 2005 as Ivan in the Boston Early Music Festival’s world-premiere staging of Mattheson's Boris Gudenow. He can be heard on many recent recordings, including the Grammy-nominated operas Thésée and Psyché of Lully, recorded with BEMF on the CPO label.

Sumner Thompson is in demand on the concert and opera stage across North America and Europe. Mr. Thompson can be heard on the Boston Early Music Festival’s Grammy nominated recording of Lully’s Psyché on the CPO label, and also with Les Voix Baroques on Canticum Canticorum, Carissimi Oratorios, and Humori, all on the ATMA label.

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