Violinist Robert Mealy Leads Juilliard415 in "The Pleasure Garden: Music From Handel's London" on Friday, December 8, 2017, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall

NEW YORK –– Violinist Robert Mealy leads Juilliard415 in “The Pleasure Garden: Music From Handel’s London” with music by Arne, Festing, and Handel on Friday, December 8, 2017, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall. The program features Handel’s Concerto grosso in G Major, Op. 6, No. 1 from Twelve Grand Concertos in Seven Parts, Op. 6; Arne’s Concerto No. 5 in G Minor from Six Favourite Concertos for Organ, Harpsichord, or Piano Forte with Juilliard harpsichordist Eunji Lee; Festing’s Concerto in G Major, Op. 3, No. 9 from Twelve Concertos in Seven Parts; Handel’s Concerto grosso in B-flat Major, Op. 6, No. 7; and Handel’s Suite in F Major from Water Music, HWV 348.

Robert Mealy, director of Juilliard Historical Performance, writes in his program note: “The pleasure garden was a particularly 18th-century invention: a space open to all who could pay a shilling, a pastoral oasis in the midst of the new urban sprawl, a place for entertainment of all sorts. London had dozens of these pleasure gardens in the 18th and 19th centuries, and many of them offered a regular diet of music to entertain the masses. In the gardens one could hear the latest airs from operas or that new invention, the orchestral concert. The house band would entertain the promenading citizens with diverting music, most frequently the popular orchestral genre of the concerto grosso.”

Tickets are $20 ($10 for full-time non-Juilliard students) and available for purchase at juilliard.edu/calendar. Tickets are free for Juilliard students.

Juilliard's full-scholarship Historical Performance program was established and endowed in 2009 by the generous support of Bruce and Suzie Kovner.

About Robert Mealy

Robert Mealy is one of America’s most prominent Baroque violinists. He began exploring early music in high school with the Collegium of University of California Berkeley and then at the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied harpsichord and baroque violin. While an undergraduate at Harvard College, he joined the Canadian Baroque orchestra Tafelmusik. Since then, he has recorded and toured with early music ensembles including Les Arts Florissants, American Bach Soloists, Tragicomedia, Sequentia, Seattle Baroque, and the Handel and Haydn Society. Recent projects include performing the complete works by J.S. Bach for violin and harpsichord at the Smithsonian, and curating a medieval music series for New York’s TENET ensemble. Mr. Mealy is principal concertmaster of Trinity Baroque Orchestra, which recently completed a survey of Bach’s cantatas. He is orchestra director of the Grammy Award-winning Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, which he has led in many festival performances, including a special performance at Versailles in 2009.

A devoted chamber musician, Mr. Mealy directs the 17th-century ensemble Quicksilver and was a founding member of the Renaissance violin band The King’s Noyse, which has made 11 recordings for Harmonia Mundi. He served for more than a decade as an instrumental soloist and leader with the Boston Camerata. Through his interest in earlier repertories, he co-founded the medieval ensemble Fortune’s Wheel. Mr. Mealy is the director of the Historical Performance program at Juilliard and from 2003 to 2015 taught at Yale, directing the postgraduate Yale Baroque Ensemble and the Yale Collegium Musicum. Prior to that, he taught at Harvard for more than a decade, where he founded the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra. In 2004, he received EMA’s Binkley Award for outstanding teaching and scholarship. He has recorded more than 80 CDs on most major labels.

About Eunji Lee

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Eunji Lee enjoys an active career as a harpsichordist. Winner of the Jurow International Harpsichord Competition, she has appeared in noted festivals including the Boston Early Music Festival, Indianapolis Early Music Festival, and Bloomington Early Music Festival. She has been heard on radio in performances broadcast on WQXR, NPR, and WFIU in which she performed with noted cornet player Bruce Dickey. Ms. Lee was an artist in residence at the Piccola Accademia di Montisi in Italy and harpsichord assistant and accompanist at the Aestas Musica Summer School in Croatia. She holds a master’s degree as a double major in harpsichord and piano from Indiana University, where she was also an associate instructor in harpsichord and fortepiano. Pursuing a doctoral degree in historical keyboards at Indiana University with Elisabeth Wright, Ms. Lee is also in Juilliard’s Historical Performance program, where she is studying with Richard Egarr, Béatrice Martin, and Peter Sykes.

About Juilliard415

Since its founding in 2009, Juilliard415, the school’s principal period-instrument ensemble, has made significant contributions to musical life in New York and beyond, bringing major figures in the field of early music to lead performances of both rare and canonical works of the 17th and 18th centuries. The many distinguished guests who have led Juilliard415 include Harry Bicket, William Christie, the late Christopher Hogwood, Ton Koopman, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Jordi Savall, and Masaaki Suzuki. Juilliard415 tours extensively in the U.S. and abroad, with notable appearances at the Boston Early Music Festival, Leipzig Bachfest, and Utrecht Early Music Festival (where Juilliard was the first-ever conservatory in residence). With its frequent musical collaborator, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, the ensemble has played throughout Italy, Japan, Southeast Asia, the U.K., India, and New Zealand. Juilliard415 has performed major oratorios and fully staged Baroque operas every year since its founding. Recent performances include Handel’s Agrippina and Radamisto, Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions, Cavalli’s La Calisto, Charpentier’s Actéon with William Christie, and performances in the U.S. and Holland of Bach’s Mass in B Minor conducted by Ton Koopman (a collaboration with the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague). The ensemble’s most recent international engagement was a 10-concert tour throughout New Zealand with Bach specialist Masaaki Suzuki. The 2017-18 season is notable for the Juilliard debuts of the rising conductor Jonathan Cohen and the Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis, as well as return visits by Rachel Podger in a program of Telemann, William Christie leading Monteverdi’s Il ballo delle ingrate, an all-Bach concert for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation with Maestro Suzuki, and the rare opportunity to see a fully staged production of Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie, with Stephen Stubbs conducting.

About Juilliard Historical Performance

Juilliard’s full-scholarship Historical Performance program offers comprehensive study and performance of music from the 17th and 18th centuries on period instruments. Established and endowed in 2009 by the generous support of Bruce and Suzie Kovner, the program is open to candidates for the Master of Music, Graduate Diploma, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees. A high-profile concert season of opera, orchestral, and chamber music is augmented by a performance-oriented curriculum that fosters an informed understanding of the many issues unique to period-instrument performance at the level of technical excellence and musical integrity for which Juilliard is renowned. The faculty comprises many of the leading performers and scholars in the field. Frequent collaborations with Juilliard’s Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts, the integration of modern-instrument majors outside of the Historical Performance program, and national and international tours have introduced new repertoires and increased awareness of historical performance practice at Juilliard and beyond. Alumni of Juilliard Historical Performance are members of many of the leading period-instrument ensembles, including the Portland Baroque Orchestra, Les Arts Florissants, Mercury, and Tafelmusik and they have founded such new ensembles as the Sebastians, House of Time, New York Baroque Incorporated, and New Vintage Baroque.

# # #

 

Program Listings:

Friday, December 8, 2017, 7:30pm, Alice Tully Hall

“The Pleasure Garden: Music From Handel’s London”

Juilliard415

Robert Mealy, violin/leader

Eunji Lee, harpsichord

 

George Frideric HANDEL Concerto grosso in G Major, Op. 6, No. 1, from Twelve Grand Concertos in Seven Parts, Op. 6

Thomas ARNE Concerto No. 5 in G Minor from Six Favourite Concerts for the Organ, Harpsichord, or Piano Forte

Michael Christian FESTING Concerto in G Major, Op. 3, No. 9 from Twelve Concertos in Seven Parts

HANDEL Concerto grosso in B-flat Major, Op. 6, No. 7

HANDEL Suite in F Major from Water Music, HWV 348

 

Tickets are $20 ($10 for full-time non-Juilliard students) and available for purchase at juilliard.edu/calendar. Tickets are free for Juilliard students.