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October 4–5, 2008 |
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SOUTHERN ITALY: MURDER, MAYHEM, AND MAGNIFICENCEwith Lucas Harris, archlute, baroque guitar, and guest leader, and Geneviève Gilardeau, guest concertmistress
Saturday, October 4, 2008, 8.00 p.m. Sunday, October 5, 2008, 2.30 p.m. Learn more about this concert! PROGRAMME A. Scarlatti: Introduzzione from Cain overo Il primo omocidio Intermission ARTIST BIOS Lucas Harris began his musical life as a jazz guitarist in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. After graduating summa cum laude from Pomona College, he studied the lute and early music for a year in Milan, Italy as one of the first Marco Fodella Foundation scholars and then at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen. Lucas now keeps a busy schedule as a continuo player for dozens of Baroque ensembles across North America. He is the regular lutenist with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and is based in Toronto since 2004. Lucas teaches each summer at Oberlin Conservatory's Baroque Performance Institute and the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, and has also taught for Amherst Early Music, the New York Continuo Collective, and the International Baroque Institute at Longy. He is a founder and director of the Toronto Continuo Collective (www.continuo.ca), a weekly class and performing ‘pluck band’ dedicated to learning the art of seventeenth-century accompaniment. Some recent projects included a lute concerto program for CBC radio’s Young Artist Series, a solo recital for the Minnesota Guitar Society, a debut solo CD, as well as duo recitals and a recording with the Chinese pipa virtuoso Wen Zhao. Lucas was music director for a recent production of Cavalli’s La Calisto for the Opera Program at Ohio State University, and will play lute concertos with Tafelmusik and Via Salzburg in 2007-8. He was praised for his work with Les voix humaines in Montréal: “The revelation of the concert was the Torontonian lutenist Lucas Harris, who weaved a poetic thread through his infinitely subtle interventions. The sweetness and patience of his playing . . . was astonishing.” (Le Devoir) Geneviève Gilardeau, a native of Québec, studied violin at the University of Montréal, the Conservatoire du Québec, and the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory in Toronto. A member of Québec City’s chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy from 1995-1998, Geneviève became a core member of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra in 1999. In addition to being a regular member of the Aradia Baroque Ensemble (where she serves regularly as concertmistress), she also performs with the Toronto Consort and with Montreal-based ensembles including Masques and Les voix humaines. Recent projects have included period-instrument performances of Schubert’s Trout Quintet and Eybler’s String Trio in G major with members of the Windermere String Quartet. Geneviève has been featured as a soloist several times with Tafelmusik, notably in concertos by Vivaldi (recorded on Analekta’s Baroque Feast) and LeClair (on CBC’s Mozart Noir). She is forever grateful to her teachers Jean-François Rivest and Jeanne Lamon for their support and for having shared so generously their passion for baroque music. |
The PBO launches our 2008/09 season with a program of luscious Italian Baroque repertoire, led by Lucas Harris on lute and guest soloist Geneviève Gilardeau on violin. In the 17th century music for string orchestra was thriving in the cities of Naples and Rome, where the music was becoming ever more dramatic and impressive. It was there that the concerto grosso was developed by Stradella, brought to perfection by Corelli, and finally expanded upon and even distorted by Valentini, Durante, Muffat, and others. Join this exploration of the southern Italian concerto – but watch your back!