Harmonious Blacksmith & Friends Concert part of Soundscapes of Jefferson's America
- Friday, March 30, 2012
- Old Cabell Hall
- 8:00 p.m.
- Free
The McIntire Department of Music and Joanne Rile present a concert by Harmonious Blacksmith and Friends at 8pm on Friday March 30th 2012 in Old Cabell Hall. This free concert is part of Soundscapes of Jefferson's America, a two day conference of scholars and performers from history, literature, theater, and music, who together will reconstruct the sounds of Early America. The conference takes place at the University of Virginia and Montalto.
Harmonious Blacksmith will be performing with members of the Baltimore Consort and UVA violin 
professor David Sariti, performing on period instruments. The concert will feature works from Jefferson's music collection and attempts to recreate an evening of domestic musicmaking at Monticello.
Harmonious Blacksmith, a group based in the Baltimore/DC area, focuses on the connection between composition and improvisation in Renaissance and Baroquestyle music, providing a new spin on age-old genres. Harmonious Blacksmith has performed at numerous festivals, including the Boston Early Music Festival Fringe, the Washington Early Music Festival, and the Magnolia Baroque Festival. They have been acclaimed by numerous journals as "elegant," "virtuousic," and "inventive."
The Baltimore Consort, one of America’s favorite early music ensembles for over thirty seasons, has made fourteen recordings on the Dorian label and has toured widely in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
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Robert Baker, tenor A central figure in the Washington-area classical music scene, Robert Baker has been featured in more than 300 performances with the Washington National Opera, as well as ten roles with the Washington Concert Opera. Career highlights include the role of Ishmael in the world premiere of Peter Westergaard's Moby Dick at Princeton University (recorded for Albany Records), and his Metropolitan Opera debut in Prokfiev's War and Peace (recorded during The Spoleto Festival's production for the Chandos label).With the National Symphony Orchestra, he can be heard as soloist on the Grammy Award-Winning recording Of Rage and Rembrance by John Corigliano (BMI), and he recently sang the role of Triquet in the NSO's Eugene Onegin. Robert Baker has also appeared in Carmina Burana with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Handel's Messiah with the Apollo Chorus in Chicago. As a performer of new music, he has premiered 15 major works and is a frequent collaborator with DC composer Douglas Boyce. Prof. Baker is the Director of Performance Studies at George Washington University. |
| Mindy Rosenfeld, flute Fluent in the music of several eras, flutist Mindy Rosenfeld tours extensively with the Baltimore Consort, and since 1989, with San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (“the nation’s premier  early music ensemble”—New York Times), where she has performed under director Nicholas McGegan andguest conductors William Christie, Jordi Savall, Gustav Leonhardt, Andrew Parrott, Andrew Manze, Bernard Labadie and Trevor Pinnock. With the PBO, she has appeared in Lincoln Center’s Mostly MozartFestival, the Berkeley Early Music Festival, BBC Proms (Royal Albert Hall), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam) and both Carnegie and Disney Halls.Principal Flutist and soloist with both the Symphony of the Redwoods (California) and the Mendocino Music Festival (California), Mindy has performed as a guest artist with numerous Bay Area ensembles. The mother of five boys, Mindy divides her time between performing, touring, teaching, dancing, her family, and their garden. |
 David Sariti, Baroque Violin, David Sariti performs widely as recitalist and chamber musician on both modern and period instruments. On the Baroque violin he recently founded Piedmont Baroque, and has also played with harpsichordist Bradley Lehman, Washington Bach Consort, Arcadia Players, and others. Faculty at the University of Virginia since 2005, he teaches violin and directs the Baroque Orchestra and the Palladian Chamber Orchestra. In collaboration with Monticello, he has presented a series of programs featuring music from the collection of Thomas Jefferson, and is featured on the recording “Music from the Jefferson Collection”. He completed his doctorate at The Hartt School, writing on “The Austro-German Violin Sonata, c. 1650”. |
 Mary Anne Ballard, viola da gambaMs Ballard tours with the Baltimore Consort and Galileo’s Daughters, and with these ensembles, as well as the Oberlin Consort of Viols, she has made about twenty recordings on the Gasparo, Classic Masters, and Dorian labels of early and traditional repertory 1500-1700. She also performs Baroque music either with chamber ensembles or in recital. In her earlier career, she was a member of The New World Consort, a group which toured the US with productions of medieval music and drama, including Le Jeu de Robin et Marion. In 2008, Ms. Ballard was the Music Director of the critically acclaimed 50th-Anniversary commemorative production of the Play of Daniel at The Cloisters, which will be revived in January 2013 to celebrate the museum’s 75th Anniversary. Active in teaching and directing early music and viola da gamba, Ms. Ballard has directed ensembles at the University of Pennsylvania, the Peabody Conservatory, and Princeton University. Every June, she teaches at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. |
DANIEL SWENBERG, guitar |
 Joseph Gascho, harpsichord Conductor and harpsichordist Joseph Gascho enjoys a varied career as a baroque keyboardist – performing as a soloist and collaborative artist; conducting opera, orchestra and choir; editing and arranging scores; and teaching and lecturing. He has won numerous grants and prizes, including first prize in the 2002 Jurow International Harpsichord Competition and the Pomeroy Prize from the University of Maryland. He recently released his debut solo CD, and recording of all his own transcriptions. Recent highlights include performances with the Mark Morris Dance Group, the Tallis Scholars and the Folger Consort, the Washington Bach Consort, and at Intersections: A New America Arts Festival. He teaches at George Washington University, the Magnolia Baroque Festival and Institute, and Oberlin Conservatory’s Baroque Performance Institute. A native of Charlottesville, he began his musical studies on the pianists Anne Lind and Yvonne Duisit, and with cellist Lynanne Wilson. |
Sarah Pillow, soprano
e works regularly with ensembles: ARTEK, REBEL, Visceral Reaction, The New York Collegium, The Metropolitan Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, Staatstheater Stuttgart, New York City Opera, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Stadtstheater Klagenfurt,Tafelmusik, Opera Atelier, Les Violons du Roy, Piffaro, Spiritus Collective, Les Voix Baroques, Musica Pacifica, the Sejong Soloists, Les Voix Baroques, Apollo's Fire, and Lizzy and the Theorboys. Recently, he accompanied Renee Fleming at the MET, Carnegie Hall, and on Live from Lincoln Center, with the Mostly Mozart Festival. He received awards from the Belgian American Educational Foundation for a study of 18th-century chamber music for the lute, and a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Bremen, Germany with Stephen Stubbs and Andrew Lawrence King.Co-Sponsors for Soundscapes in Jefferson's America are The Jefferson Trust, an initiative of the UVA Alumni Association; Robert H Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies; UVa Corcoran Department of History; UVa Department of English; Eleanor Shea Music Trust; Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature of Culture and WTJU 91.1FM .
For a schedule and a full listing of events during Soundscapes in Jefferson's America please visit: https://music.virginia.edu/soundscapes-jeffersons-america-symposium-concerts
For more information, call the McIntire Department of Music at 434-924-3052, or email .