February 13, 2017
TEMPESTA DI MARE CELEBRATES 15TH ANNIVERSARY WITH RETURN TO THE KIMMEL CENTER
Tempesta di Mare
Tempesta di Mare
Mary Marks

Tempesta di Mare’s official 15th anniversary celebratory concert on March 11, 2017 marks the Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra’s return to the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts with Spring: Revival and Rediscovery, a program that revels in the period-instrument ensemble’s signature discovery of lost works and forgotten composers, placing modern premieres and rarities in context alongside repertoire classics. For their 15th birthday, Tempesta’s founders and co-directors, Gwyn Roberts (recorder and flute) and Richard Stone (lute), are reviving some of their favorite party pieces, including works they have unearthed by Johann Gottlieb Janitsch and Johann Sigismund Kusser (including a modern premiere); music by composers Johann Friedrich Fasch (a US premiere) and Jean-Philippe Rameau that have anchored noteworthy projects in recent years; and the piece that provides the 2016-17 season’s unifying theme, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, featuring Tempesta’s concertmaster Emlyn Ngai.

Richard Stone remarks, “This has been a great 15 years. First of all, it’s been a blast to seek out and share baroque music that nobody knew was out there, and mind-opening to get a sense in the process of how much great music is out there that we’ve yet to hear. It’s like cooking a meal in an unfamiliar style and watching the supper guests’ faces reveal their pleasure and surprise. It remains a privilege to play with a great group of spirited colleagues all these years. It’s also inspiring to know that there’s been loyal and generous support for what we do.”

Tempesta di Mare has earned praise as “the model of a top-notch period orchestra, presenting unusual repertoire in first rate performances” (Miami Herald). True to form, Spring: Revival and Rediscovery features highlights of finds from the orchestra’s first 15 seasons. One such discovery is the Ouverture Grosso in G for Double Orchestra by Janitsch, a composer whom Tempesta has championed in recent years and whose works will be devoted to the ensemble’s next recording for the British-based Chandos label. Roberts and Stone found the Ouverture’s manuscript in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek in 2009, transcribed it and performed the modern premiere in May 2011.

Tempesta first performed music by Hungarian-born, German composer Jean-Sigismond Kusser in March 2012 and, by popular demand, again in March 2015. Kusser was strongly influenced by French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully whose compositional style imbues his Apollon enjoüé (“Apollo at Play”). The Ouverture 2 in F from his self-described “Theater Overture with Several Airs” betrays his theatrical bent and notches up another of Tempesta’s modern premieres.

Two of Tempesta di Mare’s largest undertakings have been a survey of the orchestral and chamber works of Johann Friedrich Fasch, and Comedie et Tragedie, an exploration of French baroque orchestral music for the theater. Recollecting these acclaimed projects, Spring: Revival and Rediscovery includes the US premiere of Fasch’s Concerto in D, FWV L:D22 which Roberts and Stone transcribed in 2007 from the manuscript discovered in the Dresden library, and a suite from Rameau’s Pygmalion, first performed by Tempesta in May 2013. Based on a tale from Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Pygmalion latterly inspired George Bernard Shaw's 1912 play by the same name, which in turn was adapted by Lerner and Loewe as the 1956 musical, My Fair Lady.

That most popular of classical works, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, provides an ongoing theme for Tempesta di Mare’s 2016-17 season, with one “season” being performed over each of four concerts. Spring: Revival and Rediscovery includes, naturally, “Spring,” featuring Tempesta di Mare concertmaster Emlyn Ngai, whose previous performances of the evergreen were described as “ebullient readings with a rustic buzz” (Philadelphia Inquirer).

Spring: Revival and Rediscovery 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. Tempesta’s next recording, of works by Janitsch, is due for release in November 2017. 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 $29 - $49, $10 (students) available from the Kimmel Center, 215 893 1999

PROGRAM INFORMATION
Spring: Revival and Rediscovery
Saturday, March 11, 2017 – 8:00 pm
Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Perelman Theater, 300 South Broad Street
Antonio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741) “Spring” from The Four Seasons
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683 – 1764) Suite from Pygmalion Jean-Sigismond Kusser (1660 – 1727) Overture in F from Apollon enjoüé
     modern premiere
Johann Gottlieb Janitsch (1708 – 1763) Ouverture grosso in G for Double Orchestra
Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688 – 1758) Concerto for Orchestra in D
     U.S. premiere

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