ARTEK: The Art of the Early Keyboard, Inc. is a New York State non-profit community service organization. Its weekly series entitled "Midtown Concerts" includes virtuoso singers and instrumentalists and a continuo band of harpsichord, lute, the orbo, guitar, harp and more.
Each concert listed below is presented on Wednesdays at 1:15 PM, at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 122 East 88th Street (at Lexington Avenue). Concerts last approximately 30 minutes and the admission is FREE. No tickets or reservations are required.
JANUARY 19
Dodd Quartet: Variations in String Quartets by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven
This program follows the development of the variation movement as the emotional center of a string quartet and includes works by Haydn (Op. 20, #4), Mozart (Quartet K. 464, adagio), and Beethoven (Op. 18, #5).
JANUARY 26
Ensemble La Pantomime: Virtuoso 18th-Century Chamber Music
A program of music for violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord that pulls the gamba and harpsichord out of their traditional accompaniment role and into the spotlight in virtuoso works by Bach, Rameau, and Marais.
FEBRUARY 2
BaroQue Across the River: Love, Longing, and Triumph in the French Cantata
The ensemble offers a program of music from 18th-Century France, including instrumental works by Jacques Morel, and Jean-Phillippe Rameau and two cantatas for soprano Michele Eaton and instrumental ensemble by Michel Pignolet de Montéclair.
FEBRUARY 9
Jessica Gould and Dan Swenberg: Purcell Theatre Songs
Soprano Jessica Gould, and lutenist, Dan Swenberg explore Purcell's collection A Collection of Ayres, Compos'd for the Theatre, and upon other Occasions (London, 1697) in a duo concert featuring some of Purcell's most beautiful and beloved songs.
FEBRUARY 16
Waits Trio: Au goût français
The ensemble performs highlights from the French Baroque period including Francois Couperin's Concerts Royaux, a violin sonata of Élisabeth Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, and Marin Marais's Sonnerie de Ste Genevieve du mont de Paris.
FEBRUARY 23
ARTEK: Rosenmüller Cantatas I
Acclaimed counter-tenor, Ryland Angel, accompanied by instrumental ensemble, performs cantatas for alto by Johann Rosenmüller.
MARCH 2
ARTEK: Rosenmüller Cantatas II
In the second part of this series, counter-tenor Ryland Angel again appears in a program of rarely-heard cantatas for alto with instrumental accompaniment by the Baroque master, Johann Rosenmüller.
MARCH 9
No Concert (Ash Wednesday)
MARCH 16
Repast: Bach and Before
A program exploring the music of a generation of German composers who immediately preceded and influenced J.S. Bach, including works by Dietrich Buxtehude and Philipp Heinrich Erlebach.
MARCH 23
Ensemble Leonarda: La Belle France
This instrumental ensemble performs sonatas by French Baroque composers: Jacques-Martin Hotteterre, Jean Barrière, and Louis-Antoine Dornel.
MARCH 30
Lyra Consort: English Chamber Works
Returning after its debut at Midtown Concerts last season, The Lyra Consort will perform "Spring" and "Winter" from Christopher Simpson's The Seasons - brilliant and sublime divisions suites for violin, viols and continuo, and chamber works featuring lyra viol.
APRIL 6
Asteria: Medieval Love Songs from the Court of Charles the Bold
The voice/lute duo performs a selection of seldom-heard chansons, showcasing the work of Antoine Busnoys and Robert Morton, two of the most valued composers in the ducal court of Charles the Bold at the end of the 15th century, in a program featuring some of their finest and most intricately beautiful work.
APRIL 13
Charites: 17th-Century Female Perspectives on the Dissolution of Beauty
The ensemble presents a musical vanitas, staged with period gesture, investigating the transient nature of youth and beauty in virtuosic music and poetry by seventeenth-century women composers and writers.
APRIL 20
ARTEK: Pergolesi's Stabat Mater Lauren Alfano, soprano, and Juli Borst, mezzo-soprano, accompanied by instrumental ensemble directed by Gwendolyn Toth, are featured in Pergolesi's profound and most beloved work.
APRIL 27
Ensemble Calandra: French Cantatas of the 1720s
Pairing the music of Boismortier and Monteclair, this program marries two cantatas published within four years of each other, in a study of similarity and difference in music, person, geography and time.
MAY 4
Musica Nuova: It's Complicated
A musical journey illustrating the twists and turns of unrequited love, illustrating the timelessness of love stories. The program includes songs and instrumental works by Monteverdi, Caccini, Strozzi, Merula, Frescobaldi and other masters of the early Italian Baroque.
MAY 11
Musica Fantasia: Songs of Courtly Love
Medieval ensemble from Montreal, Canada explores the theme of courtly love from Germany, Italy and France through the works of Walther von Vogelweide, Guillaume de Machaut and anonymous Italian ballate.
MAY 18
Michael Brown: Schubert Lieder
The highly praised ARTEK tenor performs selections from lieder by Franz Schubert, accompanied on fortepiano by ARTEK director Gwendolyn Toth.
MAY 25
Immanuel Davis, flute and members of ARTEK: French Baroque Music Acclaimed flautist Immanuel Davis is featured in an intimate concert of chamber music for baroque flute, viola da gamba, and basso continuo.
All concerts are held on Wednesdays at 1:15 PM, at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 122 East 88th Street (at Lexington Avenue). Concerts last approximately 30 minutes and the admission is FREE. No tickets or reservations are required.
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