Tempesta di Mare, the Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra, continues its ground-breaking exploration of French Baroque music for the theater with Café et Catastrophe, a program of cantatas and instrumental interludes performed by the Tempesta di Mare Chamber Players with soprano Rosa Lamoreaux, on April 25 and 26 at the at the Arch Street Meeting House and Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill.

French cantatas of the early 18th century were the home entertainment of the day. They were typically scored for a singer or two and a few instruments. Tempesta di Mare’s Chamber Players recreate this scenario with soprano Rosa Lamoreaux, who has been praised by The Washington Post for her “gorgeous sound and stylistic acuity,” accompanied by flute, violin, viola da gamba, theorbo and harpsichord. Speaking of their collaboration with Rosa, Tempesta di Mare’s co-director Gwyn Roberts remarks, “She has an incredible sense of dramatic pacing, a sharp wit, and a fine-tuned command of the French language, making her an ideal collaborator for this program of music that creates great theater with a small ensemble.”

Tempesta di Mare opens the program with the whimsical chamber cantata Le café by Nicolas Bernier, which extols the virtues of the beverage that was rapidly gaining popularity at the time. Composed more than 30 years before J. S. Bach’s popular “Coffee Cantata,” Bernier’s ode was dedicated to his patron, the coffee-loving Duc d’Orléans, whose Parisian palais was adjacent to the Café de Procope, a gathering place for the likes of Voltaire, Rousseau and Beaumarchais. The program’s closing cantata is Thomas-Louis Bourgeois’ tragedy Phèdre et Hyppolite, after the Greek myth famously dramatized by Jean Racine. The striking programmatic music evokes galloping horses, crashing waves and even a dying protagonist.

In between the two contrasting cantatas is a pair of airs de cour (courtly songs) by François Couperin, flanked by Jacques Morel’s Chaconne en trio featuring flute and viola da gamba, and Jean-Féry Rebel’s Le Terpsicore, a suite of instrumental dances, the sort of which were also commonly heard in a home or salon setting.

Comédie & Tragédie, Tempesta di Mare’s distinctive two-season curatorial focus on French Baroque orchestral music for the theater, has received widespread acclaim and recognition. Reviewing the previous concert in the series, Purcell, Charpentier and ¡Zarzuela!, the Philadelphia Inquirer applauded the “verve, grace and spark” the performers brought to the music, which was dispatched with “charisma and elegance.” The series expands upon Tempesta di Mare’s distinguished record of programming high-quality, lesser-known works and composers alongside more familiar music. This broad exploration spans over two centuries and the reign of three monarchs, and has brought to light much repertoire that is rarely performed in the United States.

The next performance in the Comédie & Tragédie series marks the finale of Tempesta di Mare’s 2014-15 season. On June 6 and 7, at the Curtis Institute’s Gould Recital Hall, Tempesta’s full orchestra will perform extended suites of music from two mid-18th century stage works: Jean-Marie Leclair’s only full-length opera Scylla et Glaucus, and one of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s many ballets, Les Fêtes de Polymnie. The performances will be repeated on June 12 at the Connecticut Early Music Festival in New London.

Major support for Comédie & Tragédie has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, with additional support from the William Penn Foundation, The Presser Foundation, and Nancy and Dick Eales. Media coverage is provided through generous support from Cancer Treatment Centers for America.

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For further information, image or interview requests please contact Melanne Mueller, MusicCo International, 917 907 2785, melanne@musiccointernational.com 

For further details about Tempesta di Mare, please visit http://tempestadimare.org

TEMPESTA DI MARE PHILADELPHIA BAROQUE ORCHESTRA & CHAMBER PLAYERS
Fanfare magazine has hailed Tempesta di Mare for its "abundant energy, immaculate ensemble, impeccable intonation, and an undeniable sense of purpose." Led by directors Gwyn Roberts and Richard Stone with concertmaster Emlyn Ngai, Tempesta performs baroque music on baroque instruments with a repertoire that ranges from staged opera to chamber music. The group performs all orchestral repertoire without a conductor, as was the practice when this music was new. Tempesta's Philadelphia Concert Series, noted by the Philadelphia Inquirer for its "off-the-grid chic factor," emphasizes creating a sense of discovery for artists and audiences alike. Launched in 2002, the series has included 31 modern world premieres of lost or forgotten baroque masterpieces, leading the Inquirer to describe Tempesta as "an old-music group that acts like a new-music group, by pushing the cutting edge back rather than forward." Its supporters include the Pew Charitable Trusts, the William Penn Foundation, the Presser Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In a marketplace dominated by European ensembles, Tempesta is the only American baroque music group to record for the prestigious British-based Chandos label. Releases include Weiss: Lute Concerti (2004), Handel: Flaming Rose (2007), Scarlatti: Cantatas and Chamber Music (2010), Fasch: Orchestral Music, vol.1 (2008), vol.2 (2011) and vol.3 (2012), Mancini: Solos for a Flute (2014), Bach Trio Sonatas (2014) and Comédie & Tragédie, vol.1 (2015). Live performances have been broadcast nationally on SymphonyCast, Performance Today, Sunday Baroque and Harmonia. Tempesta di Mare's concert recordings are distributed worldwide via the European Broadcasting Union, the world's foremost alliance of public service media organizations, with members in 56 countries in Europe and beyond.

Tempesta di Mare has toured from Oregon to Prague. Notable recent appearances have included the International Handel Festival in Göttingen, Germany; the group's New York debut at the Frick Collection; the orchestra's first European tour to the International Fasch Festival in Zerbst and a sold-out appearance on the Richard P. Garmany Chamber Music Series in Hartford, Connecticut.

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PERFORMANCE INFORMATION
Café et Catastrophe: chamber cantatas by Bourgeois & Bernier
with Rosa Lamoreaux soprano 

Saturday, April 25, 2015, 8:00 pm 

Arch Street Meeting House, 320 Arch Street

Sunday, April 26, 2015, 4:00 pm 

The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, 8855 Germantown Avenue

Nicolas Bernier (1664 – 1734) Le Café

Jacques Morel (c. 1700 – 1749) Chaconne en trio
François Couperin (1668 – 1733) 2 Airs sérieux: Qu’on ne me dise plus — Doux liens de mon cœur
Jean-Féry Rebel (1666 – 1747) La Terpsicore
Thomas-Louis Bourgeois (1676 – 1750) Phèdre et Hyppolite
 Single tickets $24, $34; students free at the door