In a year when our island has been battered by blizzards, assaulted by summer's heat (when we had any at all), and lashed by winds and rains, we have also had the sheltering refuge of music in the Ellingwood Chapel, where, just around the corner and down the street, we have been visited by Beethoven, Mozart, Ravel, Borodin, Brahms, Prokofiev...and Billy Strayhorn.

On Saturday September 10th a group of friends will gather to bring us music of the Baroque Age.  Unsurprisingly they call themselves the Amici Baroque.  Three of them are old friends; our neighbor Chris Wald, Phoebe Carrai dropping in from her teaching job at the Julliard School in New York, and Maggie Cole of London, Nahant and the World.  Joining them will be Cynthia Miller-Frevogel. See more detailed information about our performers below.

Please join us.  Respond to this email with any questions or comments.  We look forward to seeing you...and hearing them.

Amici Baroque Concert
Ellingwood Chapel, Nahant

Cynthia Miller-Freivogel, Violin
Christoph Wald, Recorder
Phoebe Carrai, Violoncello
Maggie Cole, Harpsichord

Cynthia Miller Freivogel Called “a stellar artist by any standard and the orchestra’s obvious sparkplug” by the Denver Post, Cynthia Miller Freivogel is the leader and concertmaster of the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, plays with Brandywine Baroque, and is a tenured member of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. She is a founding member and second violinist of the Novello Quartet, which is dedicated to the performance of the string quartets of Haydn and his contemporaries on period instruments. Before moving to Boston, Ms. Freivogel frequently performed at Bay Area early music venues with ensembles such as Magnificat, Voices of Music, and American Bach Soloists, and on concert series at Old First, San Francisco Early Music Society, and MusicSources. In the Boston area, she has performed with Handel and Haydn Society, Newton Baroque and Exsultemus, and the Boston Early Music Festival. She spent many summers playing violin in the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra in Boulder. Ms. Freivogel received a BA in musicology at Yale University and an MM in violin performance at the San Francisco Conservatory, and is a dedicated and certified Suzuki teacher.

Christoph Wald Christoph Wald was born in Bonn, Germany. He studied the recorder with Dorothea von Hellfeld (Bonn) and Jurgen Meyenburg (Cologne). Further musical training included master-classes in Baroque Music interpretation with Lucy van Dael and Ku Ebbinge, Amsterdam. He has toured many European countries and performed with Baroque Music Ensembles in Germany and Great Britain including Junge Instru-mentalisten Bonn, Heidelberg Chamber Orchestra, Amici di Melante, Scaramuccia, Glasgow, Telemann Ensemble, Scottish Early Music Consort and the Avison Ensemble.

He also studied Medicine in Bonn and Aberdeen. After receiving an MD and PhD degree from Bonn University he worked at University Hospitals in Glasgow, Scotland  and Duesseldorf, Germany before moving to Nahant in 1998. Past musical performances in the Boston area include concerts with Sarasa, Rialto Ensemble, Il Flauto Dolce as well as on WBUR's radio show “The Connection” with Christopher Lydon in 1999. In January 2004 he performed on WGBH radio with Sarasa on “Classical Performances” with Richard Knisely. Currently Christoph Wald is an Associate Professor of Radiology at Tufts University and Vice Chairman of Radiology at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, MA.

Maggie Cole American born, Maggie Cole enjoys an international musical life playing and recording as soloist and in chamber music on harpsichord, fortepiano and modern piano.  Best known for her performances of Bach (her recording of the Goldberg Variations was voted critics' choice in Gramophone)and the spectrum of 17th and 18th century harpsichord composers, she has  also devoted herself to 20th and 21st century harpsichord repertoire including the concertos by de Falla, Poulenc and Tansy Davies and solo works of Andriessen, Ligeti and Gavin Bryars. Maggie performs regularly with Trio

Goya, her fortepiano trio with Kati Debretzeni and Sebastian Comberti, and with the Nash Ensemble, Britten Sinfonia and the Cambridge USA Sarasa Ensemble.  Maggie's recordings include Bach's Goldberg Variations, Soler Keyboard Sonatas, Poulenc's Concert Champêtre, Boccherini Sonatas with Steven Isserlis, Bach flute sonatas with Philippa Davies and the complete Bach violin sonatas with Catherine Mackintosh . Her recent release of Haydn Trios on Chandos Records has been very well received and a recording of Schubert

violin and piano repertoire is due for release this Autumn. Maggie on the faculty of Cursos Manuel de Falla in Granada, Spain and is professor of fortepiano at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Jim Walsh
Ellingwood Chapel Concerts
PO Box 207
Nahant, MA 01908
781-367-2007

Brahms and Friends
Saturday September 11, 2010 at 7:30PM

The Lydian String Quartet and pianist Sally Pinkus will perform Brahms’ majestic Piano Quintet in F minor along with Ives’ String Quartet #1 and selections from Dvorak’s “Cypresses” (1897).

Maggie Cole, Christoph Wald and The Goldberg Variations
Saturday September 18, 2010 at 7:30PM

J.S Bach’s Goldberg Variations for Harpsichord will be the centerpiece of this concert.  It was described by Bach as an aria with variations “composed for connoisseurs, for the refreshment of their spirits.”  It is an intriguing description because it takes into account the player and the listener, both of whom are joined at the moment of performance.  Maggie Cole is an artist of the first rank, internationally known for her sublime sensibility at the keyboard.  She is joined by Christoph Wald, renowned musician and physician, for two Telemann Trio Sonatas, in C major and B flat major, for alto-recorder, harpsichord and basso continuo.

The harpsichord that will be used in this performance is a replica of an instrument by Henri Hemsch (c. 1736) which is housed in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It was built by Earl Russell in Oberlin (Ohio) in 2000.

An Evening in the Gardens of Spain
Saturday September 25, 2010 at 7:30PM

Gerald Mordis on violin and pianist Damien Francoeur-Krzyzek will present an evening of music inspired by the deep musical culture of Spain, including works by Falla, Albeniz, Granados, and others.  These musicians, both active in Boston musical circles, share a deep affection for the intoxicating atmosphere of the Iberia as it made its presence felt throughout the New World and the Old.

Admission $25 ($20 for students and seniors).  For more information go to www.nahant.org/townhall/cultural_ellingwood. 

Or, write ellingwoodconcertsplus@gmail.com with questions or reservations.

Beethoven’s Fifth, An Ellingwood First
Saturday June 19, 2010 at 7:30PM

Internationally known musician and scholar Mark Kroll and friends will play transcriptions of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony and Mozart’s Symphony #35, The Haffner, for piano quartet.

Performers:
Mark Kroll, pianist
Carol Lieberman, violin
Alan Weill, flute
Emmanuel Feldman, cello  

Reserve tickets by email ellingwoodconcertsplus@gmail.com
or call 781-367-2007

Beethoven Rediscovered!

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, perhaps one of the most widely recognized compositions in the 20th Century, was also widely known and recognized in the 19th  Century, but usually in a different form.  There were no radios, no record players, no digital downloads or ipods. But the familiar Da-Da-Da-Daaah was widely known throughout Europe and America. How was this possible?

Enter Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a contemporary of Mozart and Beethoven, and also a musician and composer.  In fact, as a boy, Hummel lived with Mozart for two years.  He was a composer of some renown as a young man but he turned his creativity to transcription as a way to support his growing family. 

It was with his own refined artistic temperament that Hummel took Beethoven’s symphonies, one through seven, and transcribed them for piano quartet.  For every person who heard a symphony orchestra play Beethoven’s Fifth, thousands heard it in a transcribed form, in this case for piano, violin, flute and cello.  In those days the performance of music was far more widespread than today.  There were more musicians and more places for them to play.  The hearing of music was more personal and intimate.  We recreate some of that intimacy at the Ellingwood Chapel.

I had the opportunity to hear this arrangement a few months ago and was bowled over by the revelations Hummel brought to the hearing of Beethoven.  It was like gazing at a fine miniature painting of someone you love.  You know the person immediately but the artist has created something new with its own unique pleasure.  And for us, the artistry of Beethoven and Hummel will be expressed by other artists of the highest quality.  This is a musical experience you will remember for the rest of your life.