Bard to host musical performance

GREAT BARRINGTON – Virtuoso baroque music performers Wieland Kuijken, Eva Legêne and Arthur Haas will make a return appearance for South Berkshire Concerts on Saturday, September 22 at 8 pm in the McConnell Auditorium of the Daniel Arts Center on the Bard College at Simon’s Rock campus.

According to Bard, each musician represents some of the highest achievement of mastery on their respective instruments in the world today:  viola da gamba, recorder and harpsichord.

They last appeared together on the South Berkshire Series on April 3, 2010, when they played to a sold-out house in Kellogg Music Center. Their coming appearance has been moved to the bigger hall to make room for a larger anticipated audience.

They will be performing a diverse program of chamber works including trio sonatas by Jean-Marie Leclair and Antonio Vivaldi, sonatas by J. S. Bach for recorder and for viola and works by Marin Marias, François Couperin and Jean Philippe Rameau.

Mr. Kuijken is widely regarded as one of the most influential pioneers in the 20th century revival of the viola da gamba and early cello. Born to a musical family near Brussels, he began studies on the cello at the Conservatory at Bruges in 1952.

Specializing in the bass viol, Mr. Kuijken has performed and recorded a large repertoire as both a continuo player and soloist. His recordings of Bach, Marais, and Forqueray have garnered critical acclaim, and his repertoire encompasses music by composers as late as Mozart and Boccherini.

Ms. Legêne, recorder virtuosa, is known throughout Europe, North America, Australia and Asia for her remarkable performances.

Born in the Netherlands as member of the third generation in a large family of musicians, she studied with Frans Brüggen and taught at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam as well as at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen.

Legêne is a frequent guest at international festivals and appeared in concert with many renowned early music artists such as Frans Brüggen, Hopkinson Smith (who will appear at Simon’s Rock this February) and many others.

Mr. Haas, harpsichordist, is one of the most sought-after performers and teachers of baroque music in the U.S. today. He holds a master’s degree in historical musicology from UCLA, where he studied harpsichord with Bess Karp.

In 1985, his formal American debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall was highly praised by The New York Times. He is a member of the Aulos Ensemble, one of America’s premier early music ensembles whose recordings of Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann and Rameau have received critical acclaim in the press. He is also a member of Empire Viols and Aula Harmoniæ.

Last May, the organization Early Music America announced “Arthur Haas will receive the Thomas Binkley Award for outstanding achievement in performance and scholarship by the director of a university or college early music ensemble.”

Posted by Kameron Z. Spaulding on September 13, 2012. Filed under Arts and Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry