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Les Délices: “Mozart in Paris–Part 2” with fortepianist Sylvia Berry (Oct. 7)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Mozart’s second sojourn in Paris in the spring of 1778 left the 22-year-old composer in a funk. A child prodigy no longer, he was ignored and double-crossed by Parisian presenters and composers, ran out of funds without the promise of earning more income, and to top it off, his mother fell ill and died. Les Délices, who devoted a program last season to Mozart’s earlier and happier visit in 1763-1764, updated his Parisian saga last weekend in four concerts featuring fortepianist Sylvia Berry. The performances launched the tenth season of one of Northeast Ohio’s most distinguished ensembles. [Read more…]

Sylvia Berry to join Les Délices in “Mozart in Paris–Part 2”

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Fortepianist Sylvia Berry will headline a series of performances with Les Délices as the period instrument ensemble gets down to business with its tenth-anniversary season. “Mozart in Paris–Part 2” will feature a surprising arrangement of Mozart’s Gran Partita, readings of his strange and humorous letters, and pieces by three of his contemporaries: Boccherini, Schobert, and Cambini.

Northeast Ohioans can catch Les Délices at Akron’s Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on Thursday, October 4 at 7:30 pm, Lakewood Congregational Church on Saturday, October 6 at 8:00 pm, or Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on Sunday, October 7 at 4:00 pm — preceded by a talk at 3:00, and followed by a celebration of the ensemble’s anniversary at Edwins. Purchase tickets here.

Anyone with an extra ounce of curiosity is also welcome to drop into some rehearsal time on Wednesday, October 3 from 6:30 to 9:30 pm at Herr Chapel, free of charge as part of the LD@Work series.

I reached Sylvia Berry by telephone after she had recently finished moving to a new house in Weymouth, MA — near Boston. That’s hardly a great time to be interviewed, but she was gracious and fun, in addition to being a walking Grove Dictionary of Music.

[Read more…]

Les Délices begins Season Ten with Fortepiano Day

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by Mike Telin

A tenth anniversary is a big deal, and the Cleveland-based period instrument ensemble Les Délices will celebrate that milestone in style. “We’ve got a lot of things going on over the next two weeks,” Les Délices founder and artistic director Debra Nagy said during a telephone conversation.

The festivities will kick off on Saturday, September 29 in Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights with Fortepiano Day. During the daylong event, with fortepianist Sylvia Berry as their guide, audiences will discover the spirit and nuance of the instrument Mozart and Haydn would have used.

At 10:30 am Berry will present a lecture demo titled “History of the Piano.” At 11:45 am, an interactive session, “Scratch and Sniff,” will allow pre-college students to try out their Classical repertoire — Mozart, Clementi, C.P.E. Bach, and others — on both modern and period instruments.

[Read more…]

Lés Delices and Quire Cleveland: “Let the Heavens Rejoice!” (Apr. 28)

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by Mike Telin

Quire & Les Delices LW RehearsalA long-overdue collaboration between two of the area’s eminent chamber ensembles yielded divine results when Les Délices and Quire Cleveland came together on Saturday, April 28 at Lakewood Congregational Church for “Let the Heavens Rejoice!” The program showcased celebratory French Baroque psalms for 22 voices, 14 instruments, and a quartet of vocal soloists, all under the direction of guest conductor Scott Metcalfe.

[Read more…]

Les Délices and Quire Cleveland say: “Let the Heavens Rejoice”

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by Mike Telin

Quire Les Delices“In many ways we’re long overdue for a collaboration, and I wanted to do something that neither group could do on their own,” Les Délices founder and artistic director Debra Nagy said by telephone. Quire Cleveland co-founder and artistic director Ross Duffin agrees. “This is a great opportunity for us to perform repertoire that otherwise would be very difficult to pull off,” he said during a separate interview.

On Friday, April 27 at 7:30 pm at St. Noel Church in Willoughby Hills, the two groups will come together for the first performance of “Let the Heavens Rejoice,” a showcase of celebratory psalms for 22 voices and 14 instruments conducted by Scott Metcalfe and featuring tenor Owen McIntosh, baritone Jeffrey Strauss, and sopranos Elena Mullins and Sarah Coffman. The program will be repeated on Saturday, April 28 at 8:00 pm at Lakewood Congregational Church, and on Sunday, April 29 at 4:00 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. Tickets are available online. A free open rehearsal will be held on Wednesday, April 25 from 7:00 pm until 10:00 pm at Plymouth Church.

[Read more…]

Les Délices at Plymouth: “Dido’s Lament” with Maria Christina Cleary & Clara Rottsolk (March 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Les Delices 031118Les Délices’ artistic director Debra Nagy quipped to the audience in Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church on Sunday, March 11, that the afternoon’s program could be nicknamed “Dido three ways.” Joined by the wonderful soprano Clara Rottsolk and the splendid Baroque harpist Maria Christina Cleary, Nagy and her ensemble explored the tragic story of Dido, Queen of Carthage, as chronicled in gripping performances of highly dramatic music by a trio of composers: Francesco Cavalli, Michel-Pignolet de Montéclair, and Henry Purcell. [Read more…]

Les Délices to present “Dido’s Lament”: a conversation with Baroque harpist Maria Christina Cleary

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by Mike Telin

Cleary-MariaDebra Nagy’s latest Les Délices creation, “Dido’s Lament,” will view the famous queen of Carthage from three emotional and musical perspectives. The tragic story of Dido, who was famously deserted by the Trojan warrior Aeneas, is based on Book 4 of Virgil’s classical epic The Aeneid. The program will include excerpts from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Cavalli’s Didone, and Montéclair’s La Mort de Didon.

The concerts, held on Saturday, March 10 at 8:00 pm in Lakewood Congregational Church, and on Sunday, March 11 at 4:00 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, will feature soprano Clara Rottsolk, harpist Maria Christina Cleary, oboist Debra Nagy, violinists Julie Andrijeski and Scott Metcalfe, violist Allison Monroe, viola da gambist Jaap ter Linden, and harpsichordist Eric Milnes. Tickets are available online.

On Saturday at 3:00 pm at the Bop Stop, the ensemble will present “Instrument of the Angels,” an LD@Play family concert. Registration is recommended.

In an email Debra Nagy said that she is thrilled to bring Maria Christina Cleary from Milan, Italy for these performances.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “Three Duels and a Wedding” at St. Paul’s, Cleveland Hts. (Feb. 9)

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by David Kulma

AF ForsytheThe Apollo’s Fire concert on Friday, February 9 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, “Three Duels and a Wedding” — with a surprise — highlighted three double concertos and the well-known Wedding Cantata by J.S. Bach. First, about the duels. The concert opened with Georg Philipp Telemann’s Concerto in e for flute and violin. Flutist Kathie Stewart’s pearly tone and concertmaster Olivier Brault’s joie de vivre were excellently complemented by harpsichordist/conductor Jeannette Sorrell and the ensemble. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: catching up with soprano Amanda Forsythe

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by Daniel Hathaway

FORSYTHE-Amanda-greenBoston-based soprano Amanda Forsythe returns to Apollo’s Fire this weekend to sing Johann Sebastian Bach’s wedding cantata, Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten, with oboist Debra Nagy and Jeannette Sorrell’s period instrument ensemble. The program, titled “Three Duels and a Wedding,” also includes concertos by Bach and Telemann (those are the “Duels”), and will be performed in four different venues from February 8-11.

Forsythe has been a frequent guest of Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, having appeared with Apollo’s Fire in “Mozart and Papa Haydn” in 2013, “The Power of Love: Passions of Handel and Vivaldi” in 2014, and in Bach’s St. John Passion in 2016.

The soprano made a strong impression at the Boston Early Music Festival in 2013, when she sang the role of Edilia in Almira, Handel’s very first opera, written at the age of 19 and premiered in Hamburg in 1705. Reviewing those performances for The New York Times, James R. Oestreich found Forsythe “simply dazzling in her fioritura and her altitudinous rages.” [Read more…]

Les Délices intoxicates with rare 14th-century music (Jan. 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Les Delices IntoxicatingThe Cleveland-based period instrument ensemble Les Délices generally traffics in French Baroque music. That national repertoire overlays special mannerisms onto forms and harmonic progressions that are otherwise relatively familiar to our ears. But when Debra Nagy takes her colleagues and audiences back another three or four hundred years on an excursion into the French 14th century, we enter a musical world that operates under very different rules. [Read more…]

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