Marais Meets Muffat in French Music Winter Feast this July

The Marais Project and The Muffat Collective join Forces at Independent Theatre Sun 16 July.

"French clothes, French food, French furniture, French customs, French sins, French illnesses are generally in vogue."
So claimed 17th century philosopher Christian Thomasius - and many would add music to that list!

Renowned early music specialists The Marais Project and The Muffat Collective come together on July 16
at North Sydney's spectacular Independent Theatre in a celebration of the special exchange of musical culture
that occurred in the late 17th century between France, Germany and Italy.

French musicians, not just French customs, had an enormous impact across Europe during the baroque and particularly, upon the various small states that made up what we now call Germany. 17th century Germans adorEd French culture in much the same way that a 14-year old teenager today might worship a poster of Justin Bieber on her or his bedroom wall. As American culture had a powerful influence on late 20th century fashion and taste, so it was for Franco-German society during the Baroque era.

The Marais meets Muffat collaboration brings to light some of the delightful
but rarely performed music that emerged in Germany as a result of French influences.
In a concert co-directed by Jennifer Eriksson and Anthony Abouhamad, The Muffat Collective and The Marais Project- named, respectively, for a German and French composer - present a rare performance of two suites for viola da gamba and strings
by the renowned Georg Philipp Telemann and his lesser-known colleague, Johann Bernhardt Bach, a second cousin to Johan Sebastian Bach.

Also featured are works by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier and François Couperin.

The Marais Project and its award-winning director Jennifer Eriksson is very familiar to Sydney audiences while The Muffat Collective (Anthony Abouhamad, Matthew Greco, Raf Font-Viera, Stephen Freeman and Anita Gluyas, represents the new wave of Australian Historically Informed Performance (HIP) ensembles.

Composer, professor of rhetoric and traveller, Georg Muffat was the ideal seventeenth-century humanist and gave his name - and his example of a life well lived - to The Muffat Collective.

This is a wonderful but all too infrequent opportunity to hear the viol and violin family together in the hands of outstanding Australian musicians.
At the same time, audiences will no doubt enjoy a repertoire - performed in the stunning acoustic and heritage ambience of the spectacular Independent Theatre - that will warm the heart on a winter's afternoon!

MARAIS MEETS MUFFAT
Jenny Eriksson (The Marais Project) with the Muffat Collective
Sunday 16 July at 3.30pm - Part of the Winter Concert Series
The Independent Theatre, 269 Miller St, North Sydney
Music by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632 - 1687)
Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643 - 1704) - Suite in D minor
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681 - 1767) - Suite for viola da gamba in D major
François Couperin (1668 - 1733) - La Sultanne
Johann Bernhard Bach (1676 - 1749) - Overture in G minor
Tickets: $37 Adult, $27 Concession, $15 student, $10 child
Includes complimentary refreshments at interval
Bookings ph: 9955 3000 or online at www.theindependent.org.au

Next concert Sun August 20: The Schubert Society presents Winterreise

To post a comment, you must register and login.