Tempesta di Mare continues its 15th anniversary season with Sara and Her Sisters, a tribute to four extraordinary German-Jewish siblings who had a significant and lasting influence on music of the 18th and 19th centuries. Sara Itzig and her sisters Bella, Fanny and Zippora had direct and personal connections to scores of composers and musicians including members of the Bach family, a young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Felix Mendelssohn who sparked the Bach Revival in the mid-19th century. Tempesta di Mare’s Chamber Players – led by co-directors Gwyn Roberts (recorder and flute) and Richard Stone (lute) – will present music by composers whose lives the Itzig sisters touched on January 21 and 22, 2017 at the National Museum of American Jewish History and Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill.

The lineage of the Berlin-based Sara and her sisters ran deep. Their father Daniel Itzig was finance minister to the musical monarch Frederick the Great who employed the flute player and composer Johann Joachim Quantz. Sara Itzig Levy studied harpsichord with Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and hosted one of Berlin’s most active and important salons where works she collected, including those by Silesian-born composer Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, were performed. Bella Itzig Salomon’s grandson was Felix Mendelssohn, to whom she gave a score of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, sparking the 19th century composer’s interest in and revival of his predecessor’s music. Fanny Itzig von Arnstein and Zippora Itzig Wullf moved to Vienna, taking with them their passion for German baroque music, influencing none other than a young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who lodged at the Arnstein house. Sara and Her Sisters features chamber music by these composers that represent the sisters’ lasting legacy.

Sisters Bella, Fanny and Sara all owned sets of J. S. Bach’s Trio Sonatas for Organ. Tempesta di Mare opens Sara and her Sisters with Richard Stone’s arrangement of the Trio Sonata No. 2 in D Minor for two violins and continuo, a version the ensemble has recorded for the Chandos label. Bella’s collection included several keyboard works by J. S. Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach; his Rondo in D Minor, Wq.61/4 will be performed by Tempesta’s harpsichordist Adam Pearl. The young Mozart was struck by the Bach family’s contrapuntal style of composition which he heard performed in Fanny’s Vienna home when he rented rooms there in 1781-82. During this time he wrote his opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, selections of which Tempesta di Mare will perform in a chamber arrangement by Johann Nepomuk Wendt.

Sara Itzig Levy’s music collection surpassed those of any of her family members, and her musical life was by far the most active. Sara and her Sisters represents three works from her immense archive – a Trio Sonata in B-flat by her harpsichord teacher W. F. Bach, a Flute Quartet in E Minor by Frederick the Great’s flute teacher J. J. Quantz, and the famous Sonata da Camera in G Minor “O Haupt” by J. G. Janitsch, performed here in a version for flute, two violas and continuo that is unique to her collection.

Over the course of her lifetime, Sara gave her collection to the Sing-Akademie in Berlin, a trove that was taken by the Red Army as a spoil of World War II. The collection, which contained hundreds of autograph manuscripts by baroque masters, was discovered in Kiev in 1990 and returned to Berlin in 2001. In it were dozens of works by Janitsch that had been considered lost. In recent years, Tempesta di Mare has championed the works of Janitsch, giving numerous modern premiere performances, and will devote their next recording for Chandos to the composer’s works which were part of the Sara Itzig Levy collection. For this project, Tempesta di Mare co-directors 
Gwyn Roberts and Richard Stone
 have transcribed and edited all of the music on-site at the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin from manuscript part books.

Sara and Her Sisters is supported in part by a grant from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.

Tempesta di Mare’s next concerts usher in 2017 with a tribute to Telemann in the 250th anniversary year of his death. Opening the Amherst Early Music Winter Workshop on January 13, 2017, and performing at the Woodmere Art Museum on February 4, 2017, Tempesta’s artist recitals feature solo fantasias and suites for flute, violin and viola da gamba. In October 2017, Tempesta will present Reclaiming Telemann, a multidisciplinary week of events appraising the life, times and oeuvre of the leading German baroque composer.

The next orchestral concert in Tempesta di Mare’s 2016-17 series is the ensemble’s official 15th anniversary celebration, taking place on March 11, 2017 at the Kimmel Center. Spring: Revival and Rediscovery features favorites from the orchestra’s first 15 seasons plus some new discoveries, including music from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pygmalion (first performed in 2013), Jean-Sigismond Kusser’s Apollon enjoüé (2010), François Couperin’s Concert dans le goût théatral (2010), and newly restored scores by Johann Friedrich Fasch, whose orchestral music Tempesta explored to great acclaim over three volumes for Chandos Records. Signaling winter’s end, the program includes “Spring” from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. This concert is presented as part of the Nancy and Dick Eales series at the Kimmel Center.

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). Comédie & Tragédie, vol. 2 was released in February 2016. 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’s international appearances have included the Prague Spring Music Festival, the Göttingen Handel Festival, the Mendelssohn-Remise Berlin and the International Fasch Festival in Zerbst. Notable North American presenters have included the Frick Collection, the Oregon Bach Festival, Abbey Bach Festival, Whitman College, Cornell Concerts, the Yale Collection, the Flagler Museum, and the Garmany Series, Hartford. In spring 2016, the orchestra performed on the Miami Bach Festival. In spring 2017, the Tempesta di Mare chamber players will return to the Frick Collection in New York.

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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

Tickets: Preferred seating $39; General admission $25; Full-time students and youth (grades 3 – 12) free at the door; also available as part of a Season Pass

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION
Sara and Her Sisters
Saturday, January 21, 2017 – 8:00 pm
National Museum of American Jewish History, 101 S. Independence Mall East Sunday,
January 22, 2017 – 4:00 pm
Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, 8855 Germantown Avenue

From the collections of Bella Itzig Salomon, Fanny Itzig Arnstein and Sara Itzig Levy
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) Trio Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, BWV526

From the salon of Sara Itzig Levy
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710–1784) Trio Sonata in B-Flat, FK50
Johann Joachim Quantz (1597–1773) Quartet in E Minor, QV4:9
Johann Gottlieb Janitsch (1708–1763) Quartet in G Minor,“O Haupt”

From the collection of Bella Itzig Salomon
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788) Rondo in D Minor, Wq.61/4

From the household of Fanny Itzig von Arnstein
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), arr. for chamber ensemble by Johann Nepomuk Wendt (1745-1801) Selections from Die Entführung aus dem Serail, KV 384

RECORDING INFORMATION
Johann Gottlieb Janitsch (1708–1763)
Ouverture grosso in G Major for double orchestra 
(premiered by Tempesta di Mare in May 2011; next performance March 2017)

Sonata “con stilo di recitativo,” in E-flat Major for flute, violin, viola and continuo (premiered January 2008; next performed December 2016)

Sonata “O Haupt,” in G Minor for flute, two violas and continuo (premiere January 2017)

Sonata in A Minor for flute, violin, viola and continuo
 (premiered January 2008; next performance April 2017)

Sonata in D Minor for two flutes, violin and continuo (premiere May 2017)

Recording for Chandos Records to take place March and May 2017