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Messiah from the bottom up: a chat with Apollo’s Fire bassist Sue Yelanjian

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by Daniel Hathaway

yelanjian-sueWhen audiences hear performances of Handel’s Messiah, the composer’s engaging melodic lines probably attract the most attention: who hasn’t found themselves humming the tunes to “Every valley shall be exalted,” “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd,” or “I know that my Redeemer liveth” on the way home?

But underpinning all of Handel’s glorious arias and stirring choruses are the composer’s equally fetching bass lines, played by the indefatigable continuo department — cello, bass, and sometimes bassoon, with a keyboard player or two filling in harmonies on harpsichord or organ.

I spoke with Apollo’s Fire principal double bass Sue Yelanjian by telephone, explaining that I wanted to write a preview of Apollo’s Fire’s forthcoming Messiah performances “from the bottom up.” [Read more…]

A trip to Venice with Apollo’s Fire (Nov. 20)

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by Nicholas Jones

love-in-veniceVenice can be pretty wet in November, but the music of Apollo’s Fire this weekend took us there and back with shoes dry and hearts warmed. With music director Jeannette Sorrell as tour guide, “Love in Venice: A Multicultural Fiesta” took us not only to  palazzi on the Grand Canal, but also ushered us safely through the crowded streets and tiny squares where Jews and Arabs traded and mixed — not always comfortably — with the ruling Christians. I attended the Sunday, November 20 performance at Rocky River Presbyterian Church. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “Resplendent Purcell” at First Baptist Church (October 8)

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by Nicholas Jones

purcell-henryThe short-lived English composer Henry Purcell wrote works that rank among the masterpieces of the Baroque. But, like many artists of the 17th century, he also had to produce a lot on demand. In his position as organist at both the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey, he needed to work up music for a number of royal occasions. Necessarily, while some of his music is deeply personal, other works — like his odes for the queen’s birthday — were clearly more routinely produced. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire opens 25th anniversary season with “Resplendent Purcell” programs

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by Daniel Hathaway

afjsconducting“I want Apollo’s Fire’s 25th Anniversary Season to be extra flashy and triumphant,” Jeannette Sorrell exclaimed in a recent telephone conversation. “So we’ll open with a program of music by Henry Purcell, one of the six or seven great composers of all time, and stretch the organization by planning a Beethoven-Schubert mini-festival at the end.”

Most concertgoers would put Beethoven and Schubert in the “greatest of all time category,” but Purcell? Sorrell agrees that his is not a household name, but she’s betting that a program of music the late-17th century composer created to celebrate the joys and soothe the sorrows of the British royal family will increase his fortunes among Clevelanders. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “My Island Home” at Baroque Music Barn (June 16)

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by Timothy Robson

Hall-BergeronOn Thursday evening, June 16 at Baroque Music Barn in Hunting Valley, Apollo’s Fire’s Countryside Concerts presented a new show, “My Island Home: Songs and Stories of Newfoundland,” created by Meredith Hall and Sylvain Bergeron in cooperation with Montréal’s Ensemble La Nef.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire, La Nef, and soprano Meredith Hall come together again for “My Island Home”

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by Daniel Hathaway

HALL-Meredith“If people liked ‘Sacrum Mysterium: A Celtic Christmas,’ they’ll know how great it is when you mix La Nef in with Apollo’s Fire people,” soprano Meredith Hall said in a recent telephone conversation.

Hall, who starred in that earlier show, returns to Cleveland this week to rejoin Sylvain Bergeron of Montréal’s Ensemble La Nef; Apollo’s Fire soloists Susanna Gilmore, fiddle, Kathie Stewart, flutes, and Tina Bergmann, hammered dulcimer; and other members of the Countryside Concerts ensemble for six performances of a new summer program called “My Island Home: Songs and Stories of Newfoundland.” [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire announces Countryside Concerts and overview of its 25th anniversary season

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by Daniel Hathaway

AF-Countryside-SorrellApollo’s Fire has released details of its summer Countryside Concerts for June and July of 2016, which will include two shows.

June 16-20 — My Island Home: songs and stories of Newfoundland will feature Meredith Hall, soprano, Sylvain Bergeron, lute, and members of Apollo’s Fire and La Nef of Montréal. A rustic celebration of the music of Hall’s homeland with fiddles, flutes, harp, gamba, percussion, and hammered dulcimer. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “A Harlequin Romance” at Maltz Performing Arts Center (April 9)

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by Daniel Hathaway

playerAndrijeski_dancing_700x475 4.17.27 PMApollo’s Fire brought baroque dance in both its noble and theatrical styles to its engaging program, “A Harlequin Romance” at the Maltz Performing Arts Center in University Circle on Saturday evening, April 9. Dancers Julie Andrijeski and Steven Player were the headliners, but concertmaster Olivier Brault also got into the act, as did several orchestra members in an encore. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “A Harlequin Romance” — Julie Andrijeski & Steven Player talk about dance

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by Daniel Hathaway

Player-AndrijeskiWhen Apollo’s Fire presents four performances this weekend of “A Harlequin Romance,” its final show of the season, Julie Andrijeski and Steven Player, who have made brief appearances as dancers with the orchestra in the past, will play a more central role in exploring both noble and popular forms of baroque movement to corresponding music by Georg Philipp Telemann.

“This is the rare occasion when I’ll be dancing in more than a cameo role,” said Andrijeski, who can usually be spotted playing violin in Apollo’s Fire. We spoke by telephone during a break in her rehearsals with Player last week.

“Steve and I will mostly be dancing this time but also playing violin and guitar a little bit. There’ll be two different type of dances: a set of the more noble dances to Telemann’s Don Quixote Suite in the first half, then in the second half we’ll be dancing to the Overture Burlesque, which is more of a commedia dell’arte presentation. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Bach’s St. John Passion at First Baptist Church (March 4)

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by Nicholas Jones

StJohnTrinityMar2016Like all great drama, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passions — his settings of the gospel accounts of Jesus’s crucifixion — present conflicting points of view. We see the Passion through so many characters in the story — the disciple Peter, who denies knowing Jesus; the conflicted Roman governor Pilate, who finds no guilt in Jesus and yet sends him to the cross; the angry crowd, which demands his crucifixion; and Jesus himself, suffering and yet transcending his suffering. At every point, Bach demands our involvement with the conflicting ways in which each of these actors interpret the crucial event of the Christian story. [Read more…]

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