Parthenia Performs 'Les Amours de Mai' 1/28

Long before the rushing in of springtime, Parthenia, a Consort of Viols, will paint the season of love's power and pain via 16th and 17th century French music set primarily to the poems of Pierre de Ronsard. Featuring soprano soloist Julianne Baird and renaissance violinist Robert Mealy, Parthenia will perform Les Amours de Mai on Friday, Jan. 28, 2011, in Jorgensen's chamber music setting.

The concert will be a tribute to Bruce Bellingham, longtime pre-concert speaker at Jorgensen, who died Jan. 3, 2010. Dr. Bellingham was a professor emeritus of music history at the UConn School of Fine Arts. A native of Canada, he held a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and taught at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, before coming to UConn in 1974. In 1976 he introduced and directed the Storrs Collegium Musicum at UConn and participated in numerous viola da gamba societies and early music groups. Beloved by Jorgensen audiences and early music fans, he gave pre-concert talks for 13 years, his last a month before his death.

"Bruce was a brilliant and gifted teacher who loved to share an expansive understanding of music and history, in the classroom as well as in pre-concert lectures," Jorgensen Director Rodney Rock recalls. "He was a passionate artist who exuded the joy of making live music, be it an early music piece, a performance with a chamber ensemble or some great jazz standard with The Amphibians. I miss most of all those times we would just informally talk about a particular artist, a favorite piece of music or the challenges of growing a younger generation of arts lovers."

Parthenia, hailed by The New Yorker as "one of the brightest lights in New York's early music scene," delves into the repertory for viols that stretches from Tudor England to the court of Versailles and beyond. The ensemble has performed in concerts throughout the United States, and in its own series at Corpus Christi Church in New York City. It has been featured on radio and television and in series such as Music Before 1800.

Parthenia has performed the complete viol fantasies of Henry Purcell at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and the touring program "When Music & Sweet Poetry Agree," a celebration of Elizabethan poetry and music with actor Paul Hecht. Parthenia appeared as part of "Searching for Shakespeare" at the Yale Center for British Art. A recording of Parthenia's Les Amours de Mai program, with Baird and Mealy, will be released soon.

Julianne Baird, one of the world's 10 most recorded classical artists with more than 125 recordings to her credit, has been hailed as a "well-nigh peerless performer in the repertory of the baroque." Her book, "Introduction to the Art of Singing", is used by professional singers worldwide.

Robert Mealy has been called "New York's world-class early music violinist" by The New Yorker. He has recorded over 50 CDs and is a frequent leader and soloist with the New York Collegium, ARTEK and the Clarion Society. He also leads the distinguished Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra. In 2004 Mealy received Early Music America's Binkley Award for outstanding teaching at Yale and Harvard.

Early music advocate Eric Rice, associate professor of music history and director of the Collegium Musicum at UConn, will give the talk before this performance, at 6:45 p.m.

Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts is located at 2132 Hillside Road on the UConn campus in Storrs. Regular tickets are $28 and $30, with some discounts available. For tickets and information, call the Box Office at 860.486.4226, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., or order online at jorgensen.uconn.edu. Convenient free parking is available across the street in the North Garage.

 

To post a comment, you must register and login.