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Apollo’s Fire — “Wassail! an Irish Appalachian Christmas” at CMA (Dec. 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Apollo’s Fire’s 2023 Christmas Show, “Wassail! an Irish Appalachian Christmas,” was a reworking of its earlier crossover shows, “Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain” and “Sugarloaf Mountain: an Appalachian Gathering” — attractive programs of folk music wrapped around the narrative of immigrants from the British Isles who brought their tunes with them to the New World. I saw the most recent version in its final performance in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday, December 17.

The narrative, delivered by Derdriu Ring (also credited with theatrical direction) opens in an Irish village on Christmas Eve of 1849 during the Great Famine, then fast forwards to immigrants’ new homes in Appalachia on Christmas Day of the following year. A Wassailing segment captures the tradition of boozy, door-to-door caroling, followed by Winter by the Hearth, a celebration of coziness in the face of winter, then a segue into a telling of the Christmas story and preparations for the sea journey to America. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “Wassail! An Irish-Appalachian Christmas” — Tina Bergmann talks about the hammered dulcimer

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by Mike Telin

Imagine that it’s Christmas night in Ireland, 1849. Families and friends gather for an evening of singing, storytelling, and due to the Potato Famine, tearful farewells. 

This setting serves as the inspiration for Apollo’s Fire’s “Wassail! An Irish-Appalachian Christmas.” Written and designed by artistic director Jeannette Sorrell, this theatrical concert follows the journey of the Irish immigrants who crossed the Atlantic to America through carols, reels, and stories.  

Led by Sorrell, the program features Irish singer Fiona Gillespie, vocalist Sam Kreindenweis, Kathie Stewart on wooden flutes, fiddlers Susanna Perry Gilmore, Emi Tanabe, and Caitlin Hedge, Tina Bergmann on hammered dulcimer, and Anna O’Connell on vocals and Celtic harp. Performances begin on Wednesday, December 6 at 7:30 at Bath Church UCC and run through December 17. Irish actress Derdriu Ring joins the company December 14-17. See our Concert Listings for times and locations. Tickets are available online.  

Bergmann, who is a regular on Apollo’s Fire crossover programs, first met Sorrell nearly 30 years ago while the conductor was looking for a hammered dulcimer player for an early American program. “She went to the Kent State Folk Festival, which is sort of my home festival, and came to one of the workshops where a good handful of hammered dulcimer players were presenting,” Bergmann recalled during a telephone conversation. “She approached me afterward and I invited her to my apartment. She had me play for her, and that’s how it started. I think it was in 1994, so it’s been an incredible journey.”

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire at Lakewood Methodist — “Fire & Joy: from Bach & Vivaldi” (Nov. 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Baroque music reaches some of its loftiest heights in concertos, and those by Antonio Vivaldi (who left us some 500) and Johann Sebastian Bach (who seeded his cantatas with concerto-like movements, wrote a collection of six famous concertos, and rearranged — or lost — goodness knows how many others) are among the most popular with ensembles like Apollo’s Fire.

On Friday, November 17, the ensemble brought its program “Fire & Joy: from Bach & Vivaldi” to Lakewood Methodist Church as a stop on its local tour that included performances in Akron, Cleveland Heights, and University Circle. Artistic Director Jeannette Sorrell chose concertos by Vivaldi and Bach, pairing them with brief Bach cantata sinfonias.

The concert began with Vivaldi’s D-minor Double Violin Concerto — which Bach arranged for organ during his time at Weimar, when Italian orchestra concertos were all the rage. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire presents Fire and Joy: Nicole Divall talks about the ‘Viola of Love’

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by Mike Telin

“The first time I played the viola d’amore it was a bit of a rush job,” Apollo’s Fire principal viola Nicole Divall recalled. “It was for the St. John Passion and I borrowed an instrument and just fell in love with it. Its sound was just so sweet and beautiful I couldn’t stop practicing.”

On Thursday, November 16 at 7:30 pm at First United Methodist Church in Akron, Divall will be the featured soloist in Vivaldi’s Concerto in d for viola d’amore and orchestra.

Directed by Jeannette Sorrell, the program also includes Bach’s Oboe Concerto in F with Debra Nagy as soloist, Vivaldi’s Concerto in d for Two Violins & Cello, and three Bach Sinfonias as well as Brandenburg Concerto No. 4

The program will be repeated on Friday at 7:30 at Lakewood United Methodist, on Saturday at 8:00 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, and Sunday at 4:00 at University Circle United Methodist Church. Violinist Andrew Fouts will give a pre-concert talk one hour before each performance. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Splendour in London at Church of the Gesu (Oct. 15)

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by Daniel Hathaway

After the dreary and destructive 17th-century Puritans had committed regicide, pillaged churches, padlocked theaters, and nearly succeeded in quashing all culture in England, Britain was thirsty for some public grandeur once the monarchy had been restored in the 1660s. At Westminster Abbey, the Chapel Royal, and in London’s newly reopened theaters, Henry Purcell was ready to supply it.

On Sunday, October 15 at Gesu Church in University Heights, Jeannette Sorrell led Apollo’s Fire and Singers in “Splendour in London,” a smorgasbord of Royal music by Purcell and his equally celebrated 18th century successor, George Frideric Handel. [Read more…]

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

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by Mike Telin

Apollo’s Fire is moving full steam ahead into their 2023-24 season, which opens this week with four Northeast Ohio performances of their program “Splendour in London.” The concerts also mark the beginning of a busy fall for the musicians and for the ensemble’s founder and artistic director, Jeannette Sorrell. In fact, with all the forward motion that Apollo’s Fire has experienced over the past couple of years, Sorrell can certainly be described as a person on the go.

I caught up with her via Zoom in Chicago while she was literally in transit and began our wide-ranging conversation by asking her to reflect on Apollo’s Fire’s recent European tour.

Jeannette Sorrell: It was a wonderful experience. That was our Exile program, which we first took to Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco. The New York concert was especially fun — it was at the Met Museum and we were sold out two weeks in advance. When you have an audience that really wants to be there, there’s always a special energy.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Music of the Jewish & African Diasporas (Mar. 8)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Who doesn’t love an Apollo’s Fire concert? Jeannette Sorrell and troupe always seem to offer a festival for the eye and ear — thoughtful thematic programs, all-out committed musicianship, and infectious exuberance. Wednesday’s program at Bath Church UCC was all this and more.

The third in a triptych of Jewish-themed programs titled “Exile and Resilience,” this one — thoughtfully conceived and researched program by Sorrell — offered seven perspectives on Jewish and African exile.

[Read more…]

Alan Choo & Apollo’s Fire:  “Muse of Fire” (Feb. 3)

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by Peter Feher

Longtime fans of Apollo’s Fire might think they’ve heard everything possible from Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, but they should have another listen. A fresh lineup of musicians and a largely unfamiliar set of composers were featured in the group’s concerts this month, making for an exciting evening with just a hint of trial and error.

Spearheading the experiment was violinist Alan Choo, a regular standout performer with Apollo’s Fire and, as of this season, the ensemble’s Assistant Artistic Director. With “Muse of Fire,” the first program he’s led here entirely solo, Choo played up the idea of coming to the fore. He chose a handful of small-scale works by lesser-known composers of the 17th century and then let much of this music speak brilliantly for itself.

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s Rosary Sonatas are the perfect vehicle for a violinist looking to make a splash. Choo has been putting all his energy into polishing these pieces, recording the complete set for an album he’s headlining with Apollo’s Fire (due out next year) and highlighting two of the fifteen sonatas here. The mastery and deliberation that come from knowing a score so well shone through in his performance on Friday, February 3 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: early Baroque treasures feature the bow of violinist Alan Choo

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by Daniel Hathaway

Most people who work multiple jobs have to factor commuting time into their schedules, but Apollo’s Fire concertmaster Alan Choo, recently also appointed assistant artistic director of the ensemble, doesn’t reckon his travel in hours. Home is in Singapore, where Choo founded Red Dot Baroque in 2018, and that’s 9,465 air miles from Cleveland.

Choo is in town for a few weeks this time to be featured in Apollo’s Fire’s “Muse of Fire” programs that begin on Thursday, February 2, in Akron and end on Sunday, February 5 in Rocky River, with two nights at St. Paul’s in Cleveland Heights in between.

His main assignment is the solo violin role in two of 17th-century Bohemian composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s Rosary Sonatas — musical meditations on the five Joyful Mysteries, the five Sorrowful Mysteries, and the five Glorious Mysteries of the life of Christ.

Probably written in the 1670s, but unknown to modern ears until first published in 1905, the devotional work is preserved in a beautiful manuscript held in the Bavarian State Library. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: a dark and 
stormy afternoon (Nov. 13)

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by Stephanie Manning

On a recent chilly Sunday in Cleveland Heights, waves of sleet skittered down from the heavens, ricocheting off anything that stood in their way. But the real storm was brewing inside St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, where Apollo’s Fire and director Jeannette Sorrell took the stage for their latest program. “Storms and Tempests” entertained a packed house on November 13, as the Baroque orchestra played up the drama of both nature and love.

The passionate mood of the afternoon was equally matched by its soloists, both familiar faces to the ensemble. The first was Alan Choo, concertmaster and Assistant Artistic Director, who brought a crackling intensity to Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in E-flat, Op. 8, No. 5. The whirling arpeggios and devilish technical passages lived up to the piece’s name: “Tempesta di Mare,” or “Storm at Sea.”

[Read more…]

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