September 27 at 2 pm in the Hope Abbey Mausoleum
(park on street near 25th or 26th and University)

Ensemble Primo Seicento performs in the lushly reverberant marble surroundings of Hope Abbey Mausoleum. The earliest Baroque music was composed for acoustically similar spaces in Northern Italy, and the resonance adds an enveloping depth to the instrumental and vocal sound. We’ll present works by Marini, Cavalli, Castello, Riccio, Cesare, Viadana, Legrenzi, and Donati, in varied combinations of voices, violin, cornetto, and trombones, with harpsichord.

Inspired by Venice’s golden age, Ensemble Primo Seicento has been mining the wealth of music published in northern Italy in the early 17th century, when the first Baroque composers were pursuing their goal of portraying vivid emotions both in song and in instrumental music. We use combinations of voices and instruments similar to what could have been heard in a Venetian church back then. The ensemble is Holly Roberts, Baroque violin, Doug Sears, cornetto and voice, Bodie Pfost, Baroque trombone and voice, Barrett Codieck, Baroque trombone, and Margret Gries, keyboards.