Sacred Bach
A Spiritual Journey
March 23 – March 26, 2017

Joseph Gascho, guest conductor
Molly Netter & Madeline Apple Healey, soprano | Daniel Moody, countertenor
Brian Giebler & Jacob Perry, tenor | David McFerrin, baritone
Apollo’s Singers

Cantatas No. 17 & 102
Motet BWV 230, Lobet den Herrn
Mass in G Major, BWV 236

J.S. Bach was famous for saying that the purpose of all music is “the glory of God and the refreshment of the spirit.” Guest conductor Joseph Gascho, a prize-winning harpsichordist and rising star of the American baroque scene, leads Apollo’s Fire and Apollo’s Singers in this spiritual journey.

Note: Joseph Gascho, replaces conductor Julian Wachner, who has had to withdraw due to family reasons

Pre-concert talk by oboist Debra Nagy, one hour before each performance. FREE!
Debra’s lecture will discuss Bach’s own “borrowings” from his cantatas for use in his Latin church music (such as the G major Missa Brevis BWV 236 on tonight’s program) as well as looking at affect and rhetoric in several of the arias from the cantatas BWV 102 and BWV 17.

These concerts are generously sponsored by Mrs. David Seidenfeld

  • JOSEPH GASCHO
    JOSEPH GASCHO
    guest conductor
  • MOLLY NETTER
    MOLLY NETTER
    soprano
  • MADELINE HEALEY
    MADELINE HEALEY
    soprano
  • DANIEL MOODY
    DANIEL MOODY
    countertenor

  • BRIAN GIEBLER
    BRIAN GIEBLER
    tenor
  • JACOB PERRY
    JACOB PERRY
    tenor
  • DAVID MCFERRIN
    DAVID MCFERRIN
    baritone
sacred_chorus_800

Thursday, March 23, 2017, 7:30PM
FAIRLAWN Lutheran
Friday, March 24, 2017, 8:00PM
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, CLEVELAND HEIGHTS
Saturday, March 25, 2017, 8:00PM
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, CLEVELAND HEIGHTS
Sunday, March 26, 2017, 4:00PM
ROCKY RIVER Presbyterian Church
Purchase Tickets
Musical Angels, detail from The Assumption of the Virgin, Carlos, Taborda Vlame Frey, (fl.1517-40) / National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon, Portugal / Bridgeman Images

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

JOSEPH GASCHO
guest conductor

Joseph Gascho enjoys a multifaceted musical career as a solo and collaborative keyboardist, conductor, teacher, and recording producer. Featuring his own transcriptions of Bach, Handel, and Charpentier, his recent debut solo recording was praised in the American Record Guide for “bristling with sparkling articulation, subtle but highly effective rubato and other kinds of musical timing, and an enviable understanding of the various national styles of 17th and 18th century harpsichord music.”

In 2002, Gascho won first prize in the Jurow International Harpsichord Competition. As a student of Webb Wiggins and Arthur Haas, he earned masters and doctoral degrees in harpsichord from the Peabody Conservatory and the University of Maryland, where he also studied orchestral conducting with James Ross.

Recent performing highlights include performing with the National Symphony at Carnegie Hall, the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra, and conducting Idomeneo for the Maryland Opera Studio. He has also conducted numerous operas from Monteverdi to Mozart for Opera Vivente.

At the Oberlin Conservatory’s Baroque Performance Institute, Gascho conducts the student orchestra, coaches chamber music, and teaches basso continuo. A strong proponent of technology in the arts, he has used computer-assisted techniques in opera productions, in a recent recording with the ensemble Harmonious Blacksmith and percussionist Glen Velez, and in his basso continuo classes.

In demand as a recording producer, Gascho has recently produced sessions and recordings for Pomerium, the Folger Consort, Trio Pardessus, the 21st Century Consort, Ensemble Gaudior, Three Notch’d Road, pianist/composer Haskell Small, Cantate Chamber Singers, and the Washington Master Chorale.

MOLLY NETTER
soprano

Molly Netter, soprano, enlivens complex and beautiful music, both old and new, with a voice described as “crisp and clear, white yet warm” (Seen and Heard International).

Known for having “exquisite poise” (NY Times) and “[embuing] every word of the text with signification” (The Examiner), she has performed as a soloist with the GRAMMY-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Les Canards Chantants, the Clarion Music Society, the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra, the Albany Symphony, Yale Opera, Heartbeat Opera, and Experiments in Opera, as well as with Juilliard415 at Lincoln Center, touring internationally in Japan, Singapore and Burma under Masaaki Suzuki and with the Triplepoint contemporary/jazz ensemble.

Ms. Netter holds an ad hoc Bachelor of Music degree in composition and contemporary voice from Oberlin Conservatory and a Master’s degree in early music voice and oratorio from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music where she studied with James Taylor. Between degrees, she taught English in Kyoto, Japan.

MADELINE HEALEY
soprano

Praised by the Washington Post for her “gorgeous singing” in her Kennedy Center debut, “silken-voiced” (Cleveland Plain Dealer) soprano Madeline Apple Healey is a soloist and chamber musician based in New York, NY. Recent and upcoming engagements include the Russian premiere of Steinberg’s Passion Week with The Clarion Choir, Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Bernstein’s MASS with Choral Arts Society of Washington, Schütz’s Musikalishe Exequien at the Amherst Early Music Festival, Ticheli’s Songs of Love and Life with the Baldwin Wallace Symphonic Wind Ensemble, and the U.S. premiere of “Here All Night” with Gare St. Lazare Ireland at The White Light Festival at Lincoln Center.

Specializing in early and contemporary repertoire, recent concert work includes national tours of Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610 with Apollo’s Fire, Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri, Bach’s Magnificat and St. John Passion, Handel’s Messiah, Tarik O’Regan’s The Ecstasies Above, Crumb’s Apparition, Lang’s little match girl passion with AMPERSAND, Matsukaze by Toshio Hosokawa at the Spoleto and Lincoln Center Festivals, and the world premiere of A Woman Young and Old, a song-cycle by Michael Bennett.

Ms. Healey is equally at home in standard repertoire. Performance credits include Olympia (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) a role in which she was praised for her “crystal clear coloratura” (Princeton Town Topics), Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Minerva (Orpheus and the Underworld), and the partial roles of Despina (Cosi fan tutte), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Cunegonde (Candide), Armide (Lully’s Armide) and Cendrillon (Cendrillon).

In the fall of 2014, Madeline founded AMPERSAND, a vocally-centric project-based ensemble, with longtime friend and colleague Anna Lenti. This season she can also be heard with Apollo’s Fire, Amor Artis, Academy of Sacred Drama, The Clarion Choir, The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, The Choir of St. Luke-in-the-Fields, The Thirteen, and TENET.

Madeline holds degrees in voice from Westminster Choir College and Baldwin Wallace University, and has recorded on the NAXOS, KOCH, Pro Organo, and AVIE labels. A Cleveland native, she now resides in Brooklyn, NY, where, when she’s not making music, she can be found baking cakes, eating french fries, and hanging out with her houseplants.

WEBSITE

DANIEL MOODY
countertenor

Countertenor Daniel Moody has garnered widespread acclaim for his “sweet and melancholy sound” (The Washington Post) and his ability to “pierce hearts” and “utterly silence a room” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer). Cited for a “vocal resonance, [that] makes a profoundly startling impression” (The New York Times) and for his “vivid and powerful” voice (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), Mr. Moody is equally celebrated for his interpretations of contemporary and baroque works.

Moody’s opera appearances have included the title roles in Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Rinaldo, Arsamene in Xerxes, Lichas in Hercules, Didymus in Theodora, Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, L’Enfant in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortileges, and as the “eerie yet forceful” (Broadway World) leading role of Man #1 in the world premiere of Desire by composer Hannah Lash. Moody recently appeared as Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea at Cincinnati Opera. American Record Guide raved about “how versatile (Moody) and his voice have become,” and spoke of “numerous moments of utter beauty…where he would start singing ever so sweetly and then just let his voice blossom out into something big and round and smooth.”

Moody’s upcoming performances include debuts with Opera Lafayette (Venus and Adonis) and Minnesota Orchestra (Messiah), a tour of St. Matthew Passion with Apollo’s Fire, Handel’s Orlando at Staunton Festival and the premiere of Elena Ruehr’s Cosmic Cowboy, to be performed in the fall of 2020 with White Snake Projects.

“Moody delivered a combination of tenderness and theatrical verve” (San Francisco Chronicle) in his recent duet concert with mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (Nicholas McGegan), and his performance of the title role in Handel’s Rinaldo led the San Diego Story to declare, “Moody’s voice grows stronger and brighter as it ascends. He may help create a new operatic vocal category: Helden Countertenor.” Daniel has also performed roles in Mark Morris’ productions of Britten’s Curlew River and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at BAM (Howard Gilman Opera House) and at the Tanglewood Music Festival where the Financial Times noted his “inspired and absorbing performances.”

Moody recently made his Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium debut with Oratorio Society of New York and also with Musica Sacra (Kent Tritle), and has performed as soloist with the Atlanta Symphony (Thomas Søndergård conducting), Les Violons du Roy in Québec City, (Bernard Labadie), Apollo’s Fire, The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra (Jeannette Sorrell), the Portland Baroque Orchestra (David Hill), and symphonies of Illinois, Charleston (Ken Lam), and Winston-Salem (Robert Moody). He gave the American premiere of George Benjamin’s intricate Dream of the Song (Stefan Asbury) at the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood Festival. He has also appeared with numerous early music groups including Boston, Indianapolis and Washington Early Music Festivals, renowned group Acronym at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, Mountainside Baroque (Maryland) and La Fiocco (Pennsylvania).

WEBSITE

BRIAN GIEBLER
tenor

Garnering praise for his “most impressive… bright, clear tone and lively personality” (New York Times), tenor Brian Giebler has been heard singing diverse repertoire around the world. A “faultless high tenor” (Seattle Times) with “great elegance of tone and phrasing” (Baltimore Sun), Mr. Giebler has been a soloist with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, American Classical Orchestra, Trinity Wall Street Baroque Orchestra, New York City Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, and Saginaw Bay Orchestra, and will make his debut with the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall this season. He made his Carnegie Hall solo debut in Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai with the New York City Chamber Orchestra, and his Lincoln Center solo debut in Handel’s Messiah with Trinity Wall Street. Recent solo engagements include the Evangelist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Trinity Wall Street, Bach’s B Minor Mass with Trinity Wall Street (“voix plus que remarquables”, Le Devoir), Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 with Green Mountain Project (“splendid… agile figuration”, Boston Music Intelligencer), Bach’s Magnificat with Seraphic Fire (“gleaming tones”, South Florida Classical Review), and the Carmel Bach Festival, where he was a 2015 Virginia Best Adams Fellow. Last season, Mr. Giebler was a finalist in the Tafelmusik International Vocal Competition and received Honorable Mention at the Biennial Bach Vocal Competition sponsored by the American Bach Society and the Bach Choir of Bethlehem. In 2015, he was selected as the Victoria Bach Festivals Young Artist and will attend the Oregon Bach Festival this summer (2017) as the Tenor Vocal Fellow.
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Brian performs with chamber ensembles throughout the country, including GRAMMY® Award winning Conspirare of Austin, GRAMMY® nominated Seraphic Fire of Miami, GRAMMY® nominated Clarion Music Society in NYC, and he is a member of the GRAMMY® nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street in Manhattan, where he currently resides. He can be heard frequently with the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, Ekmeles, TENET, True Concord Artists, Blue Heron, Green Mountain Project, Yale Choral Artists, Spire Chamber Ensemble, Musica Sacra, and Sounding Light. While living in Seattle, Brian was a member of the Seattle Opera Chorus where he performed Puccini’s La Bohème and Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.

With “one of the purest tenor voices” (DramaIntheHood) “that would make anyone melt” (BroadwayWorld), Brian recently received much critical acclaim as Marius in a regional production of Les Misérables and was recently nominated for a 2014 Gregory Award (Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Musical) for his performance. An active crossover artist, Brian was also praised for his portrayal of Fabrizio in Adam Guettel’s The Light in the Piazza (Best Musical nomination, 2011 Wilde Awards), being hailed as a “powerful tenor for such a young man” (Milan News). He has played such iconic roles as Dickon in The Secret Garden, Cain/Japheth in Children of Eden, Nicely Nicely Johnson in Guys and Dolls, and Jack in Into the Woods (Best Supporting Actor, 2005 Anvil Awards). Brian covered the roles of Tony in West Side Story (Aspen), Anthony in Sweeney Todd (Aspen), and Lt. Cable in South Pacific with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
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In 2010, Brian was seen on Philadelphia’s Fox 29 News as the 2010 Delco Idol musical theater competition winner at the Media Theatre in Pennsylvania. He was also a featured artist with the Skaneateles Music Festival in “Broadway comes to Brook Farm” under guest musical director Paul Sportelli. In Seattle, he had the pleasure of singing with the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra in their 2012 Holiday production of the Seattle-favorite, The Nutty Nutcracker, inserting classical music and popular Christmas tunes over top of the sweeping Tchaikovsky score.

At a graduate student at the University of Michigan, Brian performed as Ferrando in Cosi fan Tutte and as Bardolfo in Falstaff. He has also sung the roles of Basilio in Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro, Pedrillo in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Dr. Blind in Die Fledermaus. Brian made his international debut in Italy with the International Opera Theater of Philadelphia, premiering the operatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s La Tempesta as Ariele.

A little known fact about Brian is his expertise on trumpet. At Eastman, Brian studied in the trumpet department as a primary student and performed with the internationally acclaimed Eastman Wind Ensemble. He also performed with the Eastman Lab Jazz Band, University of Rochester Symphony Orchestra and Wind Ensemble, University of Maryland Concert Band, Philadelphia Youth Orchestra at Verizon Hall, and the University of the Arts Regional Grammy Jazz Band. In the pit, Brian played for Les Miserables (Media Theatre), Cabaret, and Assassins (Eastman).

Brian is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he earned his masters degree in Vocal Performance. He is also an alumnus of the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, and holds a bachelors degree in Vocal Performance from the Eastman School of Music. He spent two summers (2011, 2012) as a Young Artist with the Aspen Opera Theater Center.

WEBSITE

JACOB PERRY
tenor

Tenor Jacob Perry Jr., based in the Washington Metro Area, receives praise for his “gorgeous and stylish” interpretations of Renaissance and Baroque repertoire (ClevelandClassical.com). He has been featured as a soloist with Apollo’s Fire, Handel Choir of Baltimore, Mountainside Baroque, Tempesta di Mare, The Thirteen, Washington Bach Consort, and The City Choir of Washington. Jacob has been selected as the tenor participant of the Virginia Best Adams Masterclass of the 2020 Carmel Bach Festival.

Deeply immersed in vocal chamber music, Jacob enjoys active membership in Les Canards Chantants, a soloist-ensemble based in Philadelphia, as well as engagements with ensembles such as The Thirteen, the Art of Early Keyboard (ARTEK), New Consort, and Cathedra. Additionally, he can be heard singing with larger choirs such as Yale Choral Artists, The Clarion Choir, Washington Bach Consort, and the Choir of Washington National Cathedral. He has explored the vocal works by contemporary composers through engagements with Third Practice, hexaCollective, and Great Noise Ensemble. In his newly assumed role as Co-Director of Bridge, a genre-defying vocal ensemble based in Washington, he draws on his instincts for theatricality and story-telling, as the group explores the connections between early masterpieces and ground-breaking new works.

Career highlights include multiple tours performing in Roman Basilicas with the choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine, headlining the inaugural festival of Western Early Music at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music with Les Canards Chantants, his Kennedy Center debut as a featured soloist in Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine with The Thirteen, and a recital celebrating the anniversary of Monteverdi’s 450th birthday with theorbists Richard Stone and William Simms.

Since 2013, Jacob has served as a cantor and professional chorister of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. He earned his B.A. in Vocal Performance from University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

WEBSITE

DAVID MCFERRIN
baritone

Praised by The Miami Herald for his “commanding stage presence and a voice of seductive beauty,” baritone David McFerrin has won critical acclaim in a wide variety of repertoire.

On the opera stage David has been featured in several recent productions with the Boston Lyric Opera. His performances as the Officer in last season’s BLO production of Philip Glass’ gripping two-character drama In the Penal Colony were widely admired — the Wall Street Journal hailed his portrayal as “disturbingly eloquent.” Other roles with BLO have included King Mark in Martin’s The Love Potion, Cascada in Lehar’s The Merry Widow, Johann in Massenet’s Werther, and Jason McFarlane in Beeson’s Lizzie Borden, performed both in Boston and at the Tanglewood Music Festival. David has also sung with Santa Fe Opera, Seattle Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Opera Boston, Sarasota Opera, and the Rossini Festival in Wildbad, Germany. His roles include Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Taddeo in L’Italiana in Algeri and the title role in Britten’s Noye’s Fludde. This season he makes his debut with Boston Baroque as Achilla in Handel’s Giulio Cesare.

David’s solo concert engagements have ranged from Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice to the music of Cole Porter with the Boston Pops. Upcoming highlights include Bach and Monteverdi with the Handel and Haydn Society, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs, and a concert performance of Stephen Paulus’ one-act opera Three Hermits. Last season David was a featured Adams Fellow at the Carmel Bach Festival in California; debuted with the Vermont Symphony and Boston’s groundbreaking chamber orchestra, A Far Cry; returned to the Artist Series of Sarasota in a set of pops performances; and appeared with the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, Canada, and California. He was also runner-up in the Oratorio Society of New York’s 2016 Lyndon Woodside Solo Competition, the premier contest for this repertoire. Past concert credits include a Carnegie Hall debut with Gustavo Dudamel and the Israel Philharmonic, as well as performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Seraphic Fire in Miami, New York’s TENET, and at the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico. David’s concert repertoire includes Bach’s St. John Passion, B Minor Mass and Christmas Oratorio; Handel’s Messiah, Joshua, and Samson; Haydn’s Creation and Mass in Time of War; Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem; and the requiems of Brahms, Fauré and Duruflé. He is also a regular soloist and baritone section leader for the choirs of Trinity Church Boston, and performs around the country with the renaissance ensemble Blue Heron.

An avid recitalist, David has performed at the Caramoor Festival, the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival, and as a Stern Fellow at SongFest in California. He has appeared with Five Boroughs Music Festival and the New York Festival of Song, and completed four summer chamber music residencies at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. This fall he is curating and performing a program of songs from World War I with soprano Deborah Selig and pianist Clifton J. Noble, Jr., to be presented on Veterans Day in Northampton, Massachusetts.

David’s childhood in western Massachusetts was full of music: his choral director mother took him to her rehearsals in a bassinet! He started violin lessons at age five, soon joined a children’s choir, and spent his teen-age years fitting orchestra, musical theatre and a capella group rehearsals around ultimate frisbee practices and outing club treks. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Carleton College in music and political economy, he earned graduate degrees at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the Juilliard School. In 2008 he won 2nd place in the Metropolitan Opera National Council New England Region, and was awarded a Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation, annually given to promising young American singers. He lives in the Boston neighborhood of Roslindale with his wife Erin, a preservationist with the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and their black lab Holly.

WEBSITE

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