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Apollo’s Fire: Alan Choo shines light on Winter Sparks from Bach & Vivaldi

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By Mike Telin

Logging onto Zoom from Singapore, Apollo’s Fire concertmaster and assistant artistic director Alan Choo was in high spirits. “We just finished a dress rehearsal with Red Dot Baroque, Singapore’s first professional Baroque orchestra. It’s been around since 2018.”

Choo was especially excited to talk about his upcoming Apollo’s Fire concerts. He said what unifies the six works on the Winter Sparks is that the composers take their works’ thematic material and pass it around to different soloists.

“Sometimes the music feels like a friendly conversation, sometimes it feels like a love duet, and sometimes it feels like a duo that is exploring the rhetoric of the conversation between soloists, which I think is quite interesting.”

On Thursday, January 29 at 7:30 pm at First United Methodist Church in Cuyahoga Falls, Apollo’s Fire will debut Winter Sparks from Bach & Vivaldi. The program will be repeated at 7:30 on January 30 & 31 at 7:30 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights and Federated Church in Chagrin Falls, and at 4:00 pm on February 1 at Rocky River Presbyterian Church. A pre-concert conversation with oboist Debra Nagy, hosted by Alan Choo, will take place one hour before each performance. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire delights in second decade of Praetorius’ Christmas Vespers (Dec. 18)

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by Peter Feher

The German composer Michael Praetorius never had a Christmas hit on the level of, say, O Tannenbaum — an early version of which, circa 1600, is attributed to his contemporary Melchior Franck.

But in the 21st century, Praetorius has found seasonal success thanks to a team of savvy producers. Apollo’s Fire and artistic director Jeannette Sorrell have championed the composer for two decades now, fashioning his music into an enduring, historically informed holiday program. Christmas Vespers isn’t a single piece from the Praetorius catalog but rather a unique “best of” compilation that Cleveland’s Baroque orchestra unveiled in 2005 and last presented in 2015.

Who says a liturgical service can’t be popular? Apollo’s Fire once again drew sold-out crowds to church venues across Northeast Ohio with these concerts, including a packed Trinity Cathedral on Thursday evening, December 18. And for anyone who still can’t get enough Praetorius, the ensemble plans to release a video recording of the 2025 Trinity performances — not instead of, but in addition to, the group’s 2007 CD. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire to bring back Praetorius Christmas Vespers

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by Mike Telin

On Friday, December 12 at 7:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Akron, Apollo’s Fire will revive its popular Praetorius’ Christmas Vespers under the direction of Jeannette Sorrell.

Soloists include sopranos Rebecca Myers, Andréa Walker, and Molly Netter, countertenor Doug Dodson, tenors Michael Jones and Matthew Newhouse, and bass Matthew Dexter along with Apollo’s Singers, and members of Apollo’s Musettes (Treble Youth Choir). The program will be repeated at 7:00 pm on the 18th and 19th at Trinity Cathedral, 7:00 pm on the 20th at First Baptist Church, and at 4:00 pm on the 21st at St. Raphael Catholic Church. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with Jeannette Sorrell on Zoom and began our conversation by asking her when she first created the program.

Jeannette Sorrell: Exactly 20 years ago. So, we’re bringing it back on the 20th anniversary of the premiere. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Mozart’s Requiem, A Tapestry at Severance Music Center (Nov. 8)

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by Daniel Hathaway

There’s a long history in Western sacred music of extending and enriching liturgical forms and texts by adding new material. That’s how we got mass movements titled Kyrie cunctipotens genitor: medieval monks added words to decorate long chains of untexted notes called melismas. J.S. Bach tucked five extra pieces in between movements of his first version of the Magnificat to more clearly place them in the context of Christmas celebrations in Leipzig.

More recently, in 1962 Benjamin Britten added devastating verse by World I “war poet” Wilfrid Owen to the traditional funeral rite of the western Christian Church in his War Requiem, written for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, built next door to the bombed-out shell of the previous church.

Jeannette Sorrell has now added to that tradition with her Mozart’s Requiem: A Tapestry, which cleverly expands and comments on the composer’s work, left unfinished at his death in 1791, with works by Black composers. I heard the premiere of her Tapestry in an often brilliant performance by Apollo’s Fire at Severance Music Center on November 8. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire to premiere Mozart’s Requiem: A Tapestry

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by Mike Telin

For 234 years musicians have struggled with the question of how to perform Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Requiem, a piece that he left unfinished at the time of his death in 1791. Although his widow arranged for his student Franz Xavier Süssmayr to complete the work, many have found that version to be unsatisfactory.

In a press release Apollo’s Fire artistic director Jeannette Sorrell said, “As I pondered how to honor the legacy of Mozart’s unfinished Requiem, I found myself reflecting on voices that were silenced or overshadowed by the culture of that time. These voices speak to us profoundly today, as the world teeters on a precipice in so many ways. So, to complete the Requiem, I chose eight movements from sacred-inspired works by living Black composers. In this way, we pay homage to Mozart by honoring the humanity within us all.”

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Dido and Aeneas (Oct. 3)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Some operas overwhelm us with spectacle, others with sheer length. Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, first performed in the late 1680s, does neither. Barely an hour long, it holds a world of feeling — new love, dark magic, and nobility in death.

On Friday evening, October 3 at Greystone Hall in Akron, Apollo’s Fire gave the work youthful resonance by returning it to Purcell’s premiere setting, a London boarding school for girls. Jeannette Sorrell’s direction added a Shakespearean pulse — brisk, lively, and human. The performance opened with the chaconne from Purcell’s King Arthur, an elegant and radiant overture that set the evening’s tone.

Sorrell’s newly written prologue replaced Purcell’s lost original and set the scene as a school play that turns suddenly real — a nod to the opera’s first performances by students and to the scale of its story. Her approach emulated the fast-moving style of seventeenth-century English theater, when audiences stood at the players’ feet and tragedy mingled with laughter. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire begins new season: a conversation with Jeannette Sorrell

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by Mike Telin

During a Zoom conversation, Apollo’s Fire artistic director Jeannette Sorrell gave us her insights into the Orchestra’s 2025-2026 Northeast Ohio season as well as a sneak peek into its April residency at London’s historic Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Tickets and more information are available on the Orchestra’s website.

Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas — October 3 through 12.

Aryssa Leigh Burrs, mezzo-soprano (Dido), Edward Vogel, baritone (Aeneas), Andréa Walker, soprano (Belinda), and Cody Bowers, countertenor (Sorceress) with the Apollo’s Singers.

Jeannette Sorrell: I think Purcell’s music is just so exquisite. And the story of Dido and Aeneas is timeless and as poignant today as it was thousands of years ago when Virgil wrote it — the noble, brilliant queen who is jilted and abandoned by a man who says he’s leaving to follow his destiny.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “Fencing Match: Round One” (Aug. 9)

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by Peter Feher

Before the sound of armed conflict came to dominate classical music in the 20th century — think of the skittering strings or machine-gun rattle of snare drums in Dmitri Shostakovich’s symphonies — combat didn’t always mean life or death.

Among the aristocracy of 18th-century Europe, the clinking of swords was a cultivated pastime, an art on par with, say, practicing an instrument.

And that’s the spirit with which Apollo’s Fire took the stage at Case Western Reserve University’s Harkness Chapel on Aug. 9 for “Fencing Match: Round One.” The ensemble plans to reprise the program on tour next year, with this summer’s series of concerts serving to sharpen the players’ skills.

Only a few moments during Saturday afternoon’s performance needed that extra bit of fine-tuning. Much of the repertoire was right in the sweet spot for Cleveland’s Baroque orchestra, centering on well-known classics as well as a couple of signature pieces from the Apollo’s Fire canon. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire to feature flamenco guitarist Jeremy Garcia in ¡HISPANIA! concerts

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by Mike Telin

On Wednesday, May 28 at 7:30 pm in Harkness Chapel, Apollo’s Fire will present a send-off concert of their popular program ¡HISPANIA! before traveling to Puerto Rico to perform at the Casals Festival.

When they return, the ensemble will bring a new version of that program to the Holden Arboretum in Kirtland for five performances from June 5–8 and to Avon Lake United Church of Christ for a single performance on June 9. Tickets are available online.

This all-instrumental version of ¡HISPANIA! led by Jeannette Sorrell features the lively dance rhythms of “tangos and fandangos” from Spain and Argentina. An 11-piece ensemble explores the influence of Arab-infused flamenco dance music on Spanish Baroque composers – including Diego Ortiz, Gaspar Sanz, and Santiago de Murcia.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire gives a sublime performance of Bach’s Mass in b minor (Apr. 5)

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by Peter Feher

The 2024–2025 season for Apollo’s Fire may be coming to a close, but the group’s performances of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor will continue to resound throughout Northeast Ohio. Just like those listeners who are forever returning to the work for comfort, cogitation, or a glimpse of transcendence, Cleveland’s Baroque orchestra isn’t finished with this all-embracing masterpiece.

On Saturday, April 5, at Trinity Cathedral, the consoling final notes of the “Dona nobis pacem” — Bach’s “vision of peace,” as AF artistic director Jeannette Sorrell has described it — seemed to linger in the stone vaulting long after the music had died away. The effect was a sublime example of the ensemble making the most of the space, the combined period-instrument forces of woodwinds, brass, strings, and organ supporting the uplifting message sung by the chorus.

[Read more…]

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