Celebration
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – rediscovered
April 9 – April 18, 2021

VIRTUAL TICKETS – To purchase Watch-at-Home tickets, click on the Purchase Tickets button, then choose “April 26” from the drop-down menu. This is the date on which you will receive access to the video. You will be able to watch the video at any time for 30 days beginning on April 26th.

[box]Your ticket purchase allows you either to attend the concert in person, OR receive a password to watch the exclusive concert-video 1 week later in the comfort of your home. Please note: concert venues are selling out quickly for in-person seating.[/box]

Our season-long pilgrimage to wellness ends with an exuberant celebration of Nature. If you thought you knew Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, be prepared for surprises. Apollo’s Fire and Jeannette Sorrell bring these beloved concertos to life as the revolutionary acts of musical storytelling they were meant to be – a vivid and joyful depiction of traditional life in the Italian countryside. The program also features dueling cellists in Vivaldi’s stormy Concerto for Two Cellos.
 

Pre-Concert ZOOM Talks

Don’t miss the lively discussion with AF’s Visiting Scholar, Dr. Thomas Forrest Kelly of Harvard University. Choose Friday 4/9, Saturday 4/10, or Saturday 4/17 at 1:00pm. A ZOOM link will be sent to all ticket holders for these concerts.

Post-Concert VIRTUAL LOBBY

Meet 2-3 of the featured the artists in our new Q&A ZOOM discussions – Sunday 4/11 (for patrons who attend the live concert) and Tuesday 4/20 at 7:30pm (for patrons who watch the video at home). Sit down with a glass of wine for 30 minutes and toast the musicians on their performance!

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Windy City Concerts

Thursday, April 22, 2021, 7:30pm – Music Institute of Chicago, Evanston
Rachel Barton Pine & Alan Choo, violin soloists
René Schiffer & Rebecca Landell Reed, cello soloists

Purchase Tickets Subscribe to the Miniseries!

Friday, April 23, 2021, 7:30pm – DePaul University, Lincoln Park
Rachel Barton Pine & Alan Choo, violin soloists
René Schiffer & Rebecca Landell Reed, cello soloists

Purchase Tickets Subscribe to the Miniseries!
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Watch Video

 

Meet the Artists

  • OLIVIER BRAULT
    OLIVIER BRAULT
    violin
  • FRANCISCO FULLANA
    FRANCISCO FULLANA
    violin
  • ALAN CHOO
    ALAN CHOO
    violin
  • RENÉ SCHIFFER
    RENÉ SCHIFFER
    cello
  • REBECCA LANDELL REED
    REBECCA LANDELL REED
    cello

These concerts are generously sponsored by

With additional support from

Friday, April 9, 2021, 7:30PM
St. Noel Catholic Church, WILLOUGHBY HILLS
Saturday, April 10, 2021, 8:00PM
Federated Church, CHAGRIN FALLS
Sunday, April 11, 2021, 4:00PM
ROCKY RIVER Presbyterian Church
Monday, April 12, 2021, 7:30PM
The BATH Church (UCC)
Saturday, April 17, 2021, 8:00PM
CLEVELAND Institute of Music (Kulas Hall)
Sunday, April 18, 2021, 4:00PM
CLEVELAND Museum of Art (Gartner Auditorium)
*with Projected Images
Purchase Tickets
Jeannette Sorrell,harpsichord & direction
Olivier Brault & Alan Choo,violin soloists (Apr. 9-10)
Francisco Fullana & Alan Choo,violin soloists (Apr. 11-12 & 17-18)
René Schiffer & Rebecca Landell Reed,cello soloists
Allegory of Spring or La Primavera, 1477-78, by Alessandro di Mariano dei Filipepi dit Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), Tempera on wood 314 x 203 cm – Uffizi Gallery, Florence / Bridgeman Images

“The U.S.A.’s hottest baroque band.” –CLASSICAL MUSIC MAGAZINE (UK)

OLIVIER BRAULT
violin

hails from Terrebonne in Québec and brings communicative enthusiasm and scholarship to concerts throughout North America and Europe. In addition to directing the chamber ensemble Sonate 1704, he performs as Music Director with Les Goûts Réunis in Luxembourg, as a member of Four Nations Ensemble in New York, and as soloist with many Montréal-based ensembles including the Ensemble Caprice, Les Boréades de Montréal, Quatuor Franz Joseph, and Les Idées heureuses. He holds a Doctorate from the Université de Montréal, where he specialized in 18th-century violin repertoire. He has led workshops and masterclasses at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal, CWRU, Oberlin Conservatory, Penn State University, University of Michigan, the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles and The Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. He has participated in over 65 recordings, many award-winning. In 2011 he received the medal of the Assemblée Nationale de Québec for cultural contributions to his nation. Mr. Brault joined the early music faculty of McGill University in Montréal teaching baroque violin in 2017.

FRANCISCO FULLANA
violin

Spanish-born violinist Francisco Fullana, winner of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant, has been hailed as a “rising star” (BBC Music Magazine), an “amazing talent” (conductor Gustavo Dudamel) and “frighteningly awesome” (Buffalo News). His Carnegie Hall recital debut was noted for its “joy and playfulness in collaboration … it was perfection” (New York Concert Review).

A native of Mallorca in the Balearic Islands of Spain, Francisco is making a name for himself as both a performer and a leader of innovative educational institutions. As an orchestral soloist he has performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Bayerische Philharmonie led by the late Sir Colin Davis, the Sibelius Concerto with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, and the Brahms Violin Concerto with Venezuela’s Teresa Carreño Orchestra under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel. He has also soloed with the City of Birmingham, Vancouver, Pacific, Alabama and Madrid Symphonies as well as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Spanish Radio Television Orchestra, and has worked with such noted conductors as Hans Graf, Carlos Izcaray, Alondra de la Parra, Christoph Poppen, Jose Luis Gomez, Jeannette Sorrell, and Joshua Weilerstein.

Active as a chamber musician, Francisco has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival and its Musicians from Marlboro tours and is a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program. Upcoming festival appearances this summer include St. Petersburg White Nights, Moab, Music in the Vineyards and Saratoga Springs’s SPAC among others, as well as recital debuts at Mecklenburg-Vorpommen Festival & Formentor Classics. His musical collaborators have included Midori, Viviane Hagner, Nobuko Imai, Charles Neidich, Mitsuko Uchida, and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Takács and Cleveland quartets.

WEBSITE

ALAN CHOO
violin

Singaporean violinist Alan Choo has established himself on the global stage as a leading soloist, chamber musician and historical specialist. He made his solo debut with the Grammy Award-winning baroque orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, at the Tanglewood and Ravinia Music Festivals in 2017, and currently serves as Artistic Leadership Fellow for the ensemble, where he takes on soloist, concertmaster and guest director roles for the 2019-20 season. He is also Founder and Artistic Director of Red Dot Baroque, Singapore’s first professional period ensemble, which has enjoyed multiple sold-out concerts and critical acclaim since their formation in August 2018. In May 2019 he was invited as guest concertmaster and soloist with the Shanghai-based baroque ensemble, Shanghai Camerata.
 
As a modern violinist, Alan has appeared as a soloist with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Chinese Orchestra, Orchestra of the Music Makers and more. A proponent of contemporary music, Alan is co-founder of SG Inspirations, a project dedicated to performing works by Singaporean composers. In 2015, he recorded the SG Inspirations commemorative CD album with pianist Lin Hengyue as a gift to their nation on Singapore’s 50th anniversary. His piano trio Trio Phoenix combines both worlds of early and contemporary music by performing works by living composers and exploring the wealth of baroque repertoire performed with stylistic awareness on modern instruments. The trio completed their Asia Summer Tour in 2015 to critical acclaim, with repertoire ranging from Jean-Philippe Rameau to Alfred Schnittke, and were guest artists at the Lexington Bach Festival 2017.
 
Alan’s achievements in all areas of performance have earned him awards such as the Early Music Award 2016 from Peabody Conservatory, the Paul Abisheganaden Grant for Artistic Excellence 2015, the Goh Soon Tioe Centenary Award 2014, the Grace Clagett Ranney Prize in Chamber Music 2014 and 1st prize in the National Piano and Violin Competition 2011, Artist Category. He has also given masterclasses and lectures in violin performance, performance practice and stage presence to college students at Baldwin-Wallace College, Bowling Green State University, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.
 
A graduate of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory and Peabody Conservatory, Alan is currently in his final year at Case Western Reserve University pursuing a Doctorate in Historical Performance Practice under Julie Andrijeski. His past teachers include Victor Danchenko, Alexander Souptel and Risa Browder.

RENÉ SCHIFFER
cello

is praised for his “interpretive imagination and patrician command of the cello” (The Cleveland Plain Dealer). He is a native of Holland where he was a protégé of Anner Bijlsma. He later studied baroque cello with Jaap ter Linden and viola da gamba with Catharina Meints. As a member of Sigiswald Kuijken’s La Petite Bande for sixteen years, he toured four continents and appeared many times on European television. He has also performed with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Les Musiciens du Louvre, and in over forty projects with Tafelmusik of Toronto. As a concerto soloist, he has appeared throughout North America and Europe, including such venues as the Royal Theatre of Madrid, and can be heard on acclaimed CD recordings of the Vivaldi Concerto for Two Cellos and the Tango Concerto for Two Gambas (his own composition) on British label AVIE. As a chamber musician, he has performed at the renowned baroque festivals of Utrecht and Bruges, as well as the Flanders Festival and Versailles. He can be heard on more than forty CD recordings, on the Harmonia Mundi, Philips, Virgin Classics, Erato, Sony, and AVIE labels. He serves on the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music as Teacher of Baroque Cello, and has given masterclasses and coachings for the New World Symphony (Miami), the University of Michigan, Oberlin Conservatory, and Cincinnati College-Conservatory.

REBECCA LANDELL REED
cello

Cellist and gambist Rebecca Landell Reed’s “luminous” (Cleveland.com) and “notable” (The New York Times) sound elicits a range of expression “from classically evocative to Hitchcock horrifying” (Washingtonian). She enjoys a varied performing career as a soloist and chamber musician with groups like Apollo’s Fire and Three Notch’d Road, as well as collaborating with a variety of artists creating experimental programs.

During her undergraduate work at Oberlin Conservatory, Rebecca was classically trained on cello with Darrett Adkins and explored historical performance practice on Baroque cello and viola da gamba with Catherina Meints. Inspired to broaden her expressive range, she incorporated classes in acting and education while completing her master’s degree with Norman Fischer at Rice University. She later moved to Holland to work with Steuart Pincombe, creating innovative programs in unusual performance venues.

Rebecca pursues a varied professional career, such as performing and acting in Studio Theatre’s An Iliad, working with composer Eric Shimelonis on the NPR children’s show Circle Round, developing educational programs with the Crumhorn Collective, and creating unique artistic combinations with artists like filmmaker Mathias Reed and poet Derek Gromadzki. Her solo appearances on cello and viola da gamba include performances with Apollo’s Fire, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Three Notch’d Road, and Batzdorfer Hofkapelle. She can be heard on recordings with Three Notch’d Road and Apollo’s Fire, including the 2019 GRAMMY® Award winning recording Songs of Orpheus. Rebecca is currently based in Oberlin, Ohio, where she teaches cello and viola da gamba and performs regularly with Apollo’s Fire, Akron Symphony, and Ashland Symphony.

WEBSITE

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