Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Tempesta di Mare

Raritan River Music Festival NJ 2024

More accurate than a Farmers’ Almanac is a prediction for enjoyable music-making in scenic West-Central New Jersey. That’s right, the first of the warm-weather music festivals is practically upon us. Now in its 36th year, Raritan River Music will beat the summer crush, once again presenting acclaimed soloists and ensembles in a variety of programs to be performed at historic venues in Raritan and Warren Counties.

The first of this season’s concerts will take place this Saturday at 7:30 pm, at Bethlehem Presbyterian Church in Pittstown. A trio of musicians from the Philadelphia-based Tempesta di Mare Baroque Orchestra will perform music by Bach, Couperin, Marais, and Telemann, among others, on flute, recorder, viola da gamba, cello, theorbo, and lute.

On Saturday, May 17 at 7:30 pm, at Old Greenwich Presbyterian Church in Stewartsville, pianist David Korevaar will share repertoire from his new release, “Beethoven: Heroic to Hammerklavier,” on the Prospero Classical label. The program will include the Sonata in F Major, Op. 54, the Sonata in F Minor, Op. 57 “Appassionata,” the Sonata in E Minor, Op. 90, and the Sonata in A Major, Op. 101.

On Saturday, May 24, at 7:30 pm, at Stanton Reformed Church in Stanton, Raritan River Music founders (and Warren County residents) Michael Newman and Laura Oltman, a.k.a. the Newman and Oltman Guitar Duo, will be joined by the Bergamot String Quartet for “Music from the NEW World: 21st Century Masterpieces.” The program will include RRM-commissioned works by Daniel Binelli and Lowell Liebermann, the premiere of a new string quartet by New Jersey composer Payton MacDonald, selections by Bergamot violinist and composer Ledah Finck, and a work by Pulitzer Prize-and-Grammy Award-winning Princeton University alum Caroline Shaw.

The festival will conclude on Saturday, May 31, at 7:30 pm at Historic Hunterdon County Courthouse in Flemington, with “Americana Meets Old Masters.” Classical favorites and showpieces by Gershwin, Piazzolla, Bach, Rimsky-Korsakov, and others will be played on marimba, vibraphone, and piano by Greg Giannascoli, Behn Gillece, and Ron Stabinsky. Sounds like a good time to me.

The festival can also be accessed via online streaming. For more information, directions, and archived videos of past concerts, visit raritanrivermusic.org.

May 8, 2025
Weekend Streaming Concerts & Performances

Friday again. If you’re starved to see a “live” performance of anything these days, even it means streaming, here are just a few morsels to savor over the coming weekend.

Pianist Orli Shaham will appear with the Grand Rapids Symphony, in Francis Poulenc’s “Aubade.” Even under the best of circumstances, the work is hardly over-programmed, but what makes this concert especially interesting is that it will also be danced, as was originally intention. Dancers from the Grand Rapids Ballet will join Shaham and musicians from the orchestra. Also on the program will be “Aubade” by the Brazilian composer Antônio Francisco Braga (1868-1945) and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. If “aubade” is not in your active vocabulary, it indicates a piece of music associated with the dawn or early morning. The concert will be available on-demand to ticket holders for 30 days, beginning tonight at 7:30 pm EST.
https://www.grsymphony.org/art-of-dance

Somewhat closer to home, the PUBLIQuartet, familiar to followers of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (especially in regard to its landmark #Quartweet residency) will appear on “The Atterbury House Sessions.” This live concert series, held at New York’s historic Atterbury House, is curated by violinist Lara St. John, who has also appeared locally, as soloist with the PSO and courtesy of Lambertville’s Riverside Symphonia. The PUBLIQuartet concert will include works by Jessie Montgomery, Jessica Meyer, John Corigliano, and the quartet itself. Live streaming begins tomorrow at 5 pm EST. The concert will be available then, on-demand, for the period of one week. For more information, visit https://www.larastjohn.com/?ss_source=sscampaigns&ss_email_id=604bc1656af8864a81fd6f99

Bard College can always be counted on to put together a good program. Tomorrow, the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra will be conducted by its music director, Leon Botstein (also president of Bard College) and assistant conductor Andrés Rivas . Featured will be the Serenade in E-flat major, Op. 7, by Richard Strauss, “Ennanga” for Harp, String Orchestra, and Piano, by William Grant Still, Prologue and Variations, by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and the Divertimento for String Orchestra by Béla Bartók. The concert will stream Saturday night at 8 pm EST.

Bard College Conservatory Orchestra

Tempesta di Mare – Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra will celebrate the 300th anniversary of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, on a concert titled “1721: A Very Good Year.” Also featured will be works by Locatelli, Telemann, and Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco. The concert will begin streaming tomorrow at 7 pm EST, and on-demand through March 21st (Bach’s birthday).
https://tempestadimare.secure.force.com/ticket/PatronTicket__PublicTicketApp#/events/a0S0H00000O1WOKUA3

Finally, Voices Chorale NJ will host an “Irish Coffee House Concert” with Gerry Dignan. Get a leg up on St. Patrick’s Day with a program of Celtic ballads and fast Irish “mouth music.” The concert will be streamed on Monday at 7:30 pm.
https://www.voiceschoralenj.org/

Five events to keep you out of trouble. Don’t forget to change your clocks. Enjoy the music, and have a great weekend.

March 12, 2021
Tempesta di Mare Philadelphia Baroque Concert

Tempesta in morning, sailor’s warning; Tempesta at noon, music’s boon.

On today’s Noontime Concert, Tempesta di Mare – Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra will present a program titled “Fantaisie – Character, Allegory and Imagination.”

Composers will include Johann Sigismund Kusser, George Frideric Handel, François Couperin, and Georg Philipp Telemann.

The program will open with a grasshopper, and end with – the Eagles. If that piques your curiosity, I hope you will tune in and see what these bestial bookends are all about.

Tempesta di Mare takes its name from a concerto by Antonio Vivaldi, which translates as “Storm at Sea.” The group has made 10 stunning recordings of mostly underexposed repertoire for the Chandos label. In particular, it has done much to restore the reputation of Johann Friedrich Fasch.

To learn more about the ensemble and its upcoming concerts in Philadelphia and Chestnut Hill, this Saturday and Sunday – which will include Bach’s Concerto for 2 Violins and yet another Fasch discovery – visit Tempesta’s website at tempestadimare.org.

Following today’s concert broadcast, we’ll mark Women’s History Month with an afternoon of music by female composers, beginning with Philadelphia-based Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Higdon. We’ll trip back and forth across the centuries for worthwhile contributions from undervalued musicians of earlier times to works by more widely acknowledged – and even celebrated – artists of the present.

Speaking of Bach: there are only two days left until our Bach birthday bash. Help cancel fundraising on Thursday by becoming one of the “Bach 500” today. 500 listener contributions IN ANY AMOUNT will ensure that we can pull out all the stops to celebrate Bach’s genius as he deserves – with just his music, no fundraising! But in order to make that a reality, 500 noble folk need to step up and toss some bills into the kitty. Please join us today in helping to make this Elysian ideal a reality by visiting wwfm.org and clicking on “Donate.”

Then join me for an example of the kind of programming generous listeners just like you have made possible for the past 37 years, today from 12 to 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Thank you for doing your part to help keep great music on the radio!

March 19, 2019
Italian Escape on The Classical Network

With rain and snow and impending frigid temperatures in the forecast for this week for the immediate listening area, we find a welcome escape in today’s Noontime Concert on The Classical Network, as we’re off to sunny Italy with Tempesta di Mare – Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra.

Though no doubt aptly named (Tempesta di Mare = storm at sea), the group will present “A Tale of Two Italian Cities,” with musical selections from Venice (by Antonio Vivaldi, Giovanni Legrenzi, and Dario Castello) and Naples (by Alessandro Scarlatti, Andrea Falconieri, and Francesco Mancini).

Then, to take us up to 2:00 – how could I possibly resist? – we’ll hear Franz Liszt’s tale of two Italian cities, from the second volume of his “Years of Pilgrimage,” “Venezia e Napoli,” with the great pianist Lazar Berman.

The centerpiece of the afternoon will be Henri Sauguet’s Symphony No. 2, subtitled “Allégorique,” a winter-to-winter traversal of the four seasons that employs an atmospheric chorus and orchestra. The 90-minute work has been danced and presented as a straightforward oratorio. An early radio broadcast even incorporated the sounds of nature.

The forecast may be soggy, but the music will be Sauguet. We emerge from winter, if only fleeting, from 12 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

January 29, 2019

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