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Akron Symphony:
Keep Calm and Play Bach —
a chat with violinist Olivier Brault

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by Christine Jay

BRAULT-OlivierHow do you follow a celebrated performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons? Christopher Wilkins, Music Director of the Akron Symphony, created this fabulous conundrum when he invited Olivier Brault, concertmaster of Apollo’s Fire (and other historically informed ensembles across the globe), to lead Vivaldi’s iconic work in January 2014. Brault excelled and left the audience with a Vivaldian fire in its veins — but what next after Brault’s maiden voyage with the Akron Symphony two years ago?

Keep calm and play Bach.

Both friends and lovers of Bach, Wilkins and Brault devised a program of their favorite repertoire — teeming with the usual hyper-caffeinated Vivaldi and fervent complexity of Bach — for a program entitled “Vivaldi and Bach: Inspired Connection” with the Akron Symphony on January 16, 2016 at 8:00 pm in the E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Splendor of Venice at Fairmount Presbyterian (October 16)

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by Daniel Hathaway

AF-Olivier-JeannetteVenice, always on the verge of sinking into the Adriatic, rose well above sea level on Friday evening at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights as Apollo’s Fire began its 24th season with “Splendor of Venice: An Orchestral Extravaganza.” Following a parade by the musicians up the center aisle heralded by natural horns on either side of the stage, founder and conductor Jeannette Sorrell announced in her opening remarks that she would play the role of Rick Steves that night, taking the audience on a musical tour of 18th-century Venice. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Tanglewood send-off concert (June 29)

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by Jane Berkner

AF-Intimate-BachApollo’s Fire regaled the audience with a musically satisfying and well-played concert on June 29 at First United Methodist Church in Akron. One of its gala send-off concerts planned for this summer, the group played the same program at the Tanglewood Festival in Massachusetts at the end of the week. The concert opened with selections from Telemann’s Don Quixote Suite, a musical portrayal of Cervantes’ novel. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Bach in the Countryside at Baroque Music Barn in Hunting Valley (June 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

AF-Intimate-BachWhen you live in a climate like Cleveland’s (or Leipzig’s, for that matter), at the first sign of moderating weather, you want to take your activities out-of-doors — rain, bugs, wind and humidity be damned. In Leipzig, Johann Sebastian Bach led summer concerts in Zimmermann’s Kaffegarten. In Hunting Valley last week, Jeannette Sorrell led two concerts in the “Baroque Music Barn” at the intersection of Shaker Boulevard and Chagrin River Road. On those occasions, the building formerly used to store apples rang out with the music of Bach and Telemann, including a thorny trio sonata, a requiem for a canary, and a virtuoso concerto. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons at Rocky River Presbyterian Church (Ap. 19)

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by Nicholas Jones

AF-Olivier-JeannetteThe challenge for any group that takes on The Four Seasons is to “make it new,” as the poet Ezra Pound enjoined his fellow modernists. Performed and recorded time and again, Vivaldi’s most famous pieces are in perpetual danger of being played (and heard) as baroque elevator music. Apollo’s Fire, with soloist Olivier Brault, met the challenge head-on in a dramatic, fresh interpretation of these Venetian masterpieces. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire “rediscovers” Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: a chat with concertmaster Olivier Brault

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by Daniel Hathaway

AF-Olivier-JeannetteItalian baroque music is immensely popular not only with modern audiences but also with advertising firms looking for energizing music to help sell cars. And there’s nothing more popular in that repertoire than Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. This week, Apollo’s Fire will launch a six-concert series called “Vivaldi’s Four Seasons rediscovered,” featuring its concertmaster, Montréal-based violinist Olivier Brault, as soloist. Two other AF violinists, Johanna Novum and Julie Andrijeski, will do the honors in another Vivaldi concerto, the famous one in d-minor for two violins that Johann Sebastian Bach liked so well that he turned it into a solo organ work.

Brault maintains a busy career in addition to his work with Apollo’s Fire. In Québec, he serves as concertmaster for Les Boréades de Montréal and Ensemble Caprice and runs his his own group, Sonate 1704, devoted to French music for violin and continuo — one of Brault’s specialties. When we spoke via Skype, he had recently returned from Belgium, where he participated in concerts, classes and lectures on music for that combination of musicians. [Read more…]

Quire Cleveland to perform Charpentier mass based on Noëls in three concerts this weekend

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by Daniel Hathaway

QUIRE-at-TrinityFor its sixth annual round of Christmas concerts on December 19, 20 and 21, Quire Cleveland under the direction of its founder, Ross W. Duffin, will feature music from a single national tradition. French Christmas carols, or Noëls, have a long, folk-based history both in their country of origin and wherever French culture has been spread — including by Jesuit missionaries in what is now French-speaking Canada.

Literary scholars began collecting the texts of these carols as early as 1537, when Pierre Sergent gathered 150 of them into his anthology, Les Grans Noelz. By the late seventeenth century, the Noëls had inspired Parisian composers to write sets of organ variations on their delightful tunes. Marc-Antoine Charpentier based an entire setting of the midnight mass on eleven of them for use in L’Eglise Saint-Louis, the Jesuit church in the Marais district of Paris. One carol tune was even pinched by English composer John Gay for his 18th century Beggar’s Opera, where it was set to the distinctly secular text, “Fill every glass, for wine inspires us.” [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Monteverdi’s Vespers at St. Paul’s, Akron (October 31)

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by Daniel Hathaway

AF-Vespers-Trinity-2014Ornate, exotic, and opulent, Claudio Monterverdi’s Vespers of 1610 defines the meaning of “Baroque” — and as a religious work, it just might be a Puritan’s worst nightmare. On Friday evening, the 37 singers and instrumentalists of Apollo’s Fire gave the large audience in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Akron a dazzling guided tour of its many and varied attractions. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Bach’s Birthday Bash, Part I at Rocky River Presbyterian Church (October 12)

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by Nicholas Jones

AF-Intimate-BachJ. S. Bach would be astounded to find his 330th birthday celebrated with such fervor as it is this season in Northeast Ohio. Next weekend, the Cleveland Orchestra is marking the occasion with performances of the B-Minor Mass, and this past weekend Apollo’s Fire baked a scrumptious cake for the not-always-sweet cantor of Leipzig. Though the actual birthday isn’t until next March 21st, we got a sneak peek at the birthday presents early when music director Jeannette Sorrell presided over Apollo’s Fire’s program of Bach’s virtuosic instrumental music. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire to begin season with Bach, then it’s Monteverdi at home and on the road

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by Daniel Hathaway

AFatLECAlthough it seems odd for an ensemble who have performed together for over two decades, Apollo’s Fire is beginning its season with some first-time performances of well-known works by Johann Sebastian Bach — at least in their best-known versions.

“The E-Major Violin Concerto is popular and famous, and probably everybody, including our soloist, Olivier Brault, has played it many times elsewhere,” Apollo’s Fire artistic director Jeannette Sorrell said in a Skype conversation. “It just so happens that we’ve never programmed it with Apollo’s Fire before. It’s a sparkling piece!” [Read more…]

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