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.
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.
Apollo’s Fire can’t help returning to the music of Claudio Monteverdi. Cleveland’s period orchestra revived its thrilling take on the composer’s 
Turning thirty is a Big Deal for an individual, but no less significant a milestone for a musical ensemble. Just ask the musicians of Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, who marked that occasion with a trio of concerts last weekend led by its founder Jeannette Sorrell.
Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, will celebrate its 30th anniversary this weekend with three concerts: one in the 1930s splendor of Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center on Saturday, May 7 at 7:30 pm, flanked by programs in Akron and Bay Village on Friday and Sunday.
Born in Palma de Mallorca, raised in Madrid, and having spent a few summers in Aspen where he learned English, violinist Francisco Fullana was turned loose on New York City at the tender age of 16.
At the top of their program at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday afternoon, October 24, Apollo’s Fire founder and artistic director Jeannette Sorrell told the full house that the Baroque orchestra was opening its 30th season with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons rediscovered, returning to a piece that the ensemble has featured every year since 1991.
Apollo’s Fire is making the most of the summer. Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra is easing audiences back into live performances this month with a program, “Bach, Vivaldi, and Friends,” that satisfies all musical expectations. The group followed up a terrific first concert on Saturday, July 10, at the Avon Lake United Church of Christ with two more local performances and one on tour at Tanglewood.
A virtuoso is a highly skilled performer, and a virtuoso performance is one that astonishes the audience by its feats. In ancient Greece the cities would hold male competitions in acrobatics, conjuring, public reciting, blowing the trumpet, and acting out scenes from Homer’s epics, the winners of which would have been praised as virtuous, or “full of manly virtues.” —
With each of its themed programs, Apollo’s Fire is becoming more than just a period instrument ensemble that gives concerts. Its March program, “Tapestry — Jewish Ghettos of Baroque Italy,” which replaces performances of Handel’s Israel in Egypt, finds Jeannette Sorrell and her colleagues moving seamlessly out of their usual roles to morph into singing actors and dancers, all in order to bring the subject at hand to vibrant life.