Early music ensemble New York Baroque Incorporated opens its 2016-17 and fifth anniversary season with A Roman Legacy, a program that traces the lineage of a celebrated group of composers who lived and worked in the Italian capital in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. From Arcangelo Corelli to Alessandro Scarlatti and George Frederic Handel, A Roman Legacy combines three instrumental and three vocal works which feature two guest artists who are making their first appearances with New York Baroque Incorporated: soprano Sherezade Panthaki and keyboardist Richard Egarr. A Roman Legacy will be presented on Thursday, September 22, at Saint Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church on New York City’s Upper West Side.

The four composers represented on A Roman Legacy – Corelli, A. Scarlatti, Handel and Francesco Antonio Bonporti – were influenced by the previous generation’s Roman School and who in turn had a great influence on Baroque music throughout Italy and beyond.

Also a violinist, Corelli’s compositions contributed significantly to the development of the instrument during the Baroque era. Corelli was active in Rome from the 1670’s and on this program is represented by one of his early, Opus 1, trio sonatas.

Bonporti may have studied violin with Corelli. He was a priest and amateur composer who studied theology in Rome from 1691. He wrote numerous instrumental and vocal works, including 12 operas. New York Baroque Incorporated will perform one of his early, Opus 1, trio sonatas and, with Ms. Panthaki, his motet Ite molles (“Come, sweet flowers”).

Virtuoso vocal works are a hallmark of Handel and the elder Scarlatti, who spent his early years studying in Rome, where his first opera was produced in 1679. Ms. Panthaki and Mr. Egarr will join New York Baroque Incorporated for his sacred vocal concerto Rorate coeli (“Drop down ye heavens, from above”).

In the early 18th century, the young German-born Handel arrived in Rome where he honed a style that permeated his compositions for years to come. He famously repurposed his own music and the third movement melody of his Trio Sonata in B Minor, Op. 2, No. 1, appears in an extended and developed form in his 1709 opera Agrippina. His Gloria in excelsis deo, which closes the program, was rediscovered in 2001 in London where Handel later settled, though it may have been composed soon after his arrival in Italy.

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For further information about New York Baroque Incorporated and A Roman Legacy, please visit http://www.nybaroque.org/calendar/2016/9/22/a-roman-legacy

For further information, image or interview requests please contact Melanne Mueller, MusicCo International, +1 917 907 2785, melanne@musiccointernational.com

PROGRAM INFORMATION
Arcangelo Corelli (1653 – 1713) Trio Sonata in D Major, Op. 1, No. 12
Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 – 1725) Rorate coeli
Francesco Antonio Bonporti (1672 – 1749) Trio Sonata in D Minor, Op. 1, No. 5 / Ite molles
George Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759) Trio Sonata in B Minor, Op. 2, No. 1 / Gloria in Excelsis Deo

Thursday, September 22, 2016 – 7:30pm
New York Baroque Incorporated
Lorenzo Colitto, Beth Wenstrom violins
Ezra Seltzer cello
Wen Yang violone
Charles Weaver theorbo / guitar
with
Sherezade Panthaki soprano
Richard Egarr harpsichord and organ

Saint Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church
552 West End Avenue (At 87th Street)
New York, NY 10024