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Les Délices and soprano Hannah de Priest leave audiences “Starstruck” (Apr. 26)

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by Stephanie Manning

Part season finale, part album release party, Les Délices’ recent “Starstruck” program celebrated both its past and its future.

The group’s latest CD, Arcadian Dreams — released on March 13 — collects a group of pastoral pieces that local audiences heard live in 2024, featuring soprano Hannah de Priest. Last week, de Priest marked the album’s release by returning for “Starstruck,” a program of music exclusively by Georg Frederic Handel. The performances toured Akron and Cleveland Heights before the final rendition on Sunday, April 26, at Rocky River’s West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church.

Les Délices have been more than happy to support the exciting, early career of de Priest, who first met artistic director Debra Nagy as a Case Western Reserve University student and currently works as the group’s communications director. As Nagy put it, Les Délices decided to record a CD with her before anyone else did — and the wisdom of that choice is apparent once you hear her sing.

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Les Délices welcomes the festive season with “Noel, Noel” (Dec. 7)

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by Stephanie Manning

Once December kicks in, an almost overwhelming number of holiday programs pop up around Northeast Ohio. But Les Délices’ offering should draw your attention.

While other festive concerts may create the atmosphere of a bustling party by the fireplace, “Noel, Noel” is like observing a snowy evening from the warmth of the indoors. This is music best enjoyed in quiet contentment, and especially live — so it’s no surprise that the early music ensemble brought back this signature program for three performances this month.

On December 7 at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, the six-member group presented a lovely ninety-minute program, which is also available on CD and via streaming until the end of the year. [Read more…]

Les Délices’ elaborate, entertaining Aesop Project (Nov. 22)

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by Peter Feher

In the 1670s, Louis XIV commissioned a series of 39 fountains for the Gardens of Versailles, each modeled on a story from Aesop’s Fables and intended for the education of the king’s young son, the Dauphin.

The Aesop Project, the latest community offering from Les Délices and artistic director Debra Nagy, is slightly less ornate but just as inspired. Cleveland’s ever-resourceful period chamber ensemble partnered with local puppeteers and poets for this family-friendly program teaching music and morals.

After touring Northeast Ohio schools earlier in the week, the project received a public performance at the CMA Community Arts Center on Saturday morning, November 22. Children, parents, and committed patrons of early music sat down for the 35-minute show, surrounded by spectacular displays of costumes and props from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s annual Parade the Circle celebration. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “Fencing Match: Round One” (Aug. 9)

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by Peter Feher

Before the sound of armed conflict came to dominate classical music in the 20th century — think of the skittering strings or machine-gun rattle of snare drums in Dmitri Shostakovich’s symphonies — combat didn’t always mean life or death.

Among the aristocracy of 18th-century Europe, the clinking of swords was a cultivated pastime, an art on par with, say, practicing an instrument.

And that’s the spirit with which Apollo’s Fire took the stage at Case Western Reserve University’s Harkness Chapel on Aug. 9 for “Fencing Match: Round One.” The ensemble plans to reprise the program on tour next year, with this summer’s series of concerts serving to sharpen the players’ skills.

Only a few moments during Saturday afternoon’s performance needed that extra bit of fine-tuning. Much of the repertoire was right in the sweet spot for Cleveland’s Baroque orchestra, centering on well-known classics as well as a couple of signature pieces from the Apollo’s Fire canon. [Read more…]

Les Délices delights with “The Mermaid” in Rocky River (Apr. 27)

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by Daniel Hathaway

As their name implies, the rarefied music of the French baroque is the pain quotidien of Cleveland’s period instrument ensemble Les Délices, but artistic director Debra Nagy occasionally points her excellent and variable group in other directions.

The latest crossing of genres at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday afternoon, April 27,  took Nagy and her colleagues out of the salons of Paris across the Channel to the docks of Portsmouth.

Wielding her baroque oboe and recorder, Nagy joined soprano Elena Mullins Bailey, violinist Allison Monroe, cellist Rebecca Landell, percussionist Anthony Taddeo, and special guest Sean Dagher, shantyman and Irish bouzouki artist, in slightly more than an hour’s worth of rollicking sea shanties, plus oceanic tunes by Henry Purcell, Joseph Haydn, and Maurice Green.

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Les Délices: music fosters meaningful conversation at Cleveland’s VA Medical Center (Feb. 21)

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by Stephanie Manning

Navigating dementia — a common, yet devastating part of aging — requires confronting all sorts of complex emotions. People with memory loss, their caregivers, and the medical teams who interact with them all understand this well. So when Les Délices commissioned a piece tackling this difficult topic, they made a special effort to bring the music to those who would resonate with it the most.

The Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center hosted the early music ensemble for two performance-discussion sessions on February 21, a moving and emotional afternoon of empathetic, honest conversations about memory loss all framed by the solace of music.

At 12:00 pm, medical professionals and providers gathered in the rec hall, where flags of the U.S., the Department of VA, and the military’s many branches now provided a backdrop to a harpsichord and a collection of music stands. As part of the “Bioethics at Noon” series, the Les Délices musicians performed François Couperin’s La Visionnaire and selections from Viet Cuong’s world premiere, A Moment’s Oblivion. [Read more…]

Les Délices contemplates what makes us human in “A Moment’s Oblivion” (Feb. 23)

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by Stephanie Manning

“How wretched to forget,” sings the son in A Moment’s Oblivion — a character whose father now struggles to recognize members of his own family. “For all we were forms who we are.”

But the miracle cure that restores his father’s memory turns out to be a more fraught solution than it appears. Such is the conflict at the heart of Les Délices’ recent commission, with music by Viet Cuong and libretto by Cleveland poet Dave Lucas. The early music ensemble’s latest program surrounded the world premiere of A Moment’s Oblivion with more musical opportunities to reflect on the complex, and sometimes contradictory, emotions that make us human. [Read more…]

Les Délices: Debra Nagy’s singular, ambitious Four Seasons (Apr. 13)

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by Peter Feher

Most Clevelanders spend at least part of the year wishing they could change the seasons here. But oboist Debra Nagy has actually done it with her ambitious rearrangement of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.

In adapting these familiar violin concertos to the strengths and tastes of Les Délices — her period-instrument ensemble that continues to push historical performance in unexpected directions — Nagy has achieved something singular. [Read more…]

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