Harmonia Baroque To Perform Early Music in West Jefferson and Boone

Ensemble Concertizes January 24 and 27

Story by Anna Oakes

The Harmonia Baroque ensemble features (from left) Alicia Chapman on hautbois (Baroque oboe), Barbara Blaker Krumdieck on Baroque cello, Michael Bell on harpsichord, mezzo-soprano Priscilla Porterfield and Nancy Schneeloch-Bingham on traverso (Baroque flute). The ensemble performs Baroque music on exact replicas of 18th century instruments.

Return to the music of the 17th and 18th centuries with Harmonia Baroque—a Baroque chamber ensemble of ASU’s Hayes School of Music. The ensemble performs at the Ashe Arts Center in West Jefferson on Saturday, January 24, at 7:30 p.m. and at Rosen Concert Hall in Boone on Tuesday, January 27, at 8:00 p.m.

Baroque is a term used to describe music created between the years 1600 and 1750. Perhaps most well known for its attention to detailed musical embellishments, “Baroque music’s primary objective is to move the listener through use of tempo, spirit, key (tonal center) and personal interpretation and ornamentation, to bring the affect, or expression, of a particular piece to life,” said Dr. Alicia Chapman, instructor of oboe at ASU and a founding member of Harmonia Baroque.

The ensemble includes two other members of the Hayes School of Music faculty—Nancy Schneeloch-Bingham on Baroque flute and mezzo-soprano Priscilla Porterfield—as well as Michael Bell on harpsichord and Barbara Blaker Krumdieck on Baroque cello.

The Harmonia Baroque members play on exact replicas of 18th century instruments. Baroque instruments are constructed from a different type of wood—boxwood—than modern instruments, Chapman said. The Baroque flute is called the traverso, and a Baroque oboe is called the hautbois. The traverso and hautbois only have one or two keys, so playing them requires a very different technique, she noted. The Baroque cello looks similar to the modern cello but differs in sound because its strings are made from sinew (gut), not steel.

Overall, the Baroque instruments are softer and more subdued in sound than their modern counterparts, she said. “It’s a very expressive sound.” Baroque music is performed at a pitch that is a half-step lower than modern pitch.

Baroque music also lacks the detailed instructions that are indicated on the pages of 19th and 20th century music, Chapman added, “so it is left to the performers to rely on experience and intuition to bring the notation on the page into living sound.  

“This is one of the great challenges and joys of playing Baroque music; engaging and moving our listeners gives us so much satisfaction,” she said.

Harmonia Baroque’s programs at the Ashe Arts Center and Rosen Concert Hall will focus on French and Italian Baroque music. The ensemble will perform selections by Lully, Monteclair, Boismortier, Monteverdi and Handel. The concert will last about an hour.

Tickets to the Ashe Arts Center performance are $10 for adults and $5 for students. Admission to the Rosen Concert Hall concert is free.

For information about the concert in West Jefferson, contact the Ashe County Arts Council at 336-846-2787 or click to www.AsheCountyArts.org. For info about the Rosen Concert Hall performance, call 828-262-3020.

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