ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad
Ad

Les Délices ventures into jazz standards with its “Songs Without Words” concerts

by

by Mike Telin

NAGY-Debra“Instrumentalists, especially during the last couple of decades of the 17th century, would often turn to vocal music as a source of repertory for their solo playing,” said Debra Nagy, Les Délices Artistic Director, during a recent interview. “This program uses that idea as its point of departure and brings the concept into the 20th century with jazz standards arranged for and improvised by the ensemble.”

On Saturday, October 15 at 8:00 pm at SPACES, and on Sunday at 4:00 pm at Herr Chapel, Plymouth Church, Les Délices will kick off its new season with a program titled “Songs Without Words.” The program will feature torch songs spanning the 17th to 20th centuries, including music by Michel Lambert, Marin Marais, Billy Strayhorn, and Nina Simone. [Read more…]

Les Délices: Vaudeville in the French Baroque (May 8)

by

by Nicholas Jones

TheatredelaFoireWhen we hear the big names of French Baroque music — Couperin, Lully, Rameau — we think of the opulence of the courts of Paris and Versailles. And we think big — long, serious operas on mythical subjects, string bands packed with dozens of players, and hefty subsidies from king and courtiers. But outside the heady claustrophobia of the courts, Paris also had a looser musical counterculture in the suburbs: small ensembles that played music based on popular tunes, and presented “operas” based not on the tragedies of gods and heroes but on the complications of everyday life. [Read more…]

Les Délices to present
“Concertos Comiques”

by

by Mike Telin

CorretteFinding ways to circumvent rules has always been a popular pastime. It has also often inspired creative genius. When Louis XIV put a stranglehold on entertainments such as opera and theater by enforcing rules designed to secure official monopolies, non-court composers and playwrights countered with Fair Theaters (Théâtre de la Foire), low-cost performances on the outskirts of Paris. The satirical plots regularly mocked the pretentiousness of the bourgeois by featuring servants who were far more intelligent than their bosses, or by poking fun at old men who chased after young girls.

On Saturday, May 7 at 8:00 pm at the Bop Stop and Sunday, May 8 at 4:00 pm at Plymouth Church, Les Délices will present Concertos Comiques. The program will include works by Michel Corrette, Francesco Corbetta, Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, and Jean-Joseph Mouret, performed by Debra Nagy (oboe), Julie Andrijeski and Scott Metcalfe (violins), Josh Lee (viola da gamba), and Simon Martyn-Ellis (theorbo and baroque guitar). [Read more…]

Les Délices to hold Ohio City residency from March 17—20

by

by Mike Telin

LesDelicesPopUp2Les Délices, Cleveland’s period instrument ensemble specializing in French Baroque music, will settle into Ohio City beginning on Thursday, March 17 for a weekend full of free events. As a resident of the neighborhood, Artistic director Debra Nagy feels strongly about reaching out to Cleveland’s Near-West Side community. “The primary goals for the residency are to build awareness of chamber music performance, expand the group’s West-Side audience, and increase visibility for Cleveland artists,” Nagy said in an interview.

The ensemble’s residency also celebrates Early Music Month, devised by Early Music America. Nagy, who is an EMA board member, explained that the month is designed to draw attention to the quantity, breadth, and richness of the country’s early music scene. [Read more…]

Les Délices: “Folly of Youth” at Harkness Chapel, CWRU (Feb. 20)

by

by Christine Jay

Rubens-fall-of-phaetonDoing stupid things when young is natural. Two epic failures in youth — alas, fatal ones — are found in the myths of Icarus and Phaeton. Both are ambitious teenagers, their unrelenting and unchecked egos inducing catastrophe. Although similarly bold, the Les Délices program titled “Folly of Youth” at Case Western Reserve University’s Harkness Chapel on February 20 delighted and enthralled, with no signs of godly demise. [Read more…]

Les Délices to present “Folly of Youth” with guest soprano Shannon Mercer, Feb. 20 & 21

by

by Mike Telin

Mercer-ShannonRemember being young and thinking you were immortal: never believing that your actions could have tragic consequences? This weekend Les Délices will explore the “Folly of Youth” on Saturday, February 20 at 8:00 in Harkness Chapel and Sunday, February 21 at 4:00 pm in Herr Chapel, Plymouth Church. The program will pair George Frideric Handel’s youthful cantata Tra le fiamme with French Baroque works that recount the stories of Icarus and Phaeton — young men who dared to fly too close to the sun. The weekend will also include a 45-minute free Family Concert on Saturday beginning at 3:00 pm at The Bop Stop.

“The program is a vocal workout, but I’m looking forward to it!” exclaimed Canadian soprano Shannon Mercer during a telephone interview. “There’s a youthful frivolity to it, and the French works all have a lot of drama.”

The text to Handel’s cantata Tra le fiamme explores the concepts of fatal attraction, temptation, pleasure, and exhilaration. Mercer, who will be making her Les Délices debut at these concerts, said the work is highly ornamented in its depiction of flight, feathers, and butterflies. [Read more…]

Les Délices: Sponseller & Street in “The Imaginary Orchestra” (January 16)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

2-HarpsichordsRecitals that feature duo-harpsichordists are rare enough treats, but the program of French baroque music that Michael Sponseller and Jacob Street played on Les Délices’ series at The Galleries at Cleveland State University on Saturday evening, January 16, was an extraordinary tasting menu of twenty opera-related delights. These ranged from the ancien cuisine music of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marin Marais to the nouvelle cuisine experiments of Armand-Louis Couperin, sandwiched around ten wonderfully varied main courses by Jean-Philippe Rameau and followed by a pair of postprandial confections supplied by Pancrace Royer. [Read more…]

Les Délices’ The Imaginary Orchestra:
a conversation with harpsichordists Michael Sponseller and Jacob Street

by

by Mike Telin

Sponseller-Street“When you work in baroque opera, the job of a harpsichordist is to also be the Répétiteur,” Michael Sponseller explained during a recent conference call with fellow harpsichordist Jacob Street. “During the rehearsals, our job is to take the score and figure out how to make one harpsichord sound like an orchestra.”

This weekend, Les Délices will prove that two harpsichords are better than one when Michael Sponseller and Jacob Street combine their musical wizardry for two concerts entitled “The Imaginary Orchestra.”

The program, presented on Saturday, January 16 at 8:00 pm in The Galleries at Cleveland State University and on Sunday at 4:00 pm at Herr Chapel in Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, will feature arrangements from operas by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marin Marais, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Pancrace Royer, as well as the rarely heard symphony for two harpsichords by Armand-Louis Couperin. Les Délices artistic director Debra Nagy and harpsichordist Lisa Goode Crawford will present a pre-concert talk at each performance. [Read more…]

Musical life after the holidays:
a cornucopia of January concerts

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Bronfman-FWM-TCONow that winter has finally arrived and the excitement of the holidays has subsided, it’s tempting to burrow in and hibernate for a few weeks. But there’s plenty to do during January. Let’s have a look at some of what the month has to offer, beginning with orchestra concerts.

Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra are back at work early in the month with a round of all-Beethoven concerts from January 7-9 featuring pianist Yefim Bronfman (left) in the third piano concerto, and Bronfman and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus in the Choral Fantasy. Soprano Barbara Hannigan will be featured in the U.S. premiere of Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you on January 14 and 15, sharing a program with Dmitri Shostakovich’s fourth symphony. On Saturday the 16th, Robert Porco will lead the annual Martin Luther King Jr Celebration, followed by a Severance Hall Open House on Monday the 17th from 12 Noon to 5 pm. Community ensemble performances will be bracketed by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus (12:30) and Youth Orchestra (4:15). The Cleveland Philharmonic will host its own MLK Observance at Tri-C Metro Auditorium on Sunday, January 17. [Read more…]

Galante Experiments: Les Délices in “The Age of Indulgence” at Plymouth Church (Nov. 8)

by

by Nicholas Jones

Les-Delices-3The truism holds that French aristocrats before the Revolution danced time away in utter complacency, refusing to change in the face of the inevitable. The image is probably true with respect to most things that would have mattered to those who stormed the Bastille. But in the world of music, things were changing decades before the Revolution. Writing within a framework of courtly elegance that would have pleased Marie Antoinette, composers were also pushing the boundaries of their music with wit, irony, turmoil, and glimmers of Romantic self-consciousness. [Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us