Juilliard Historical Performance Presents "Handel in Rome" Featuring Juilliard415 and Vox Luminis on Saturday, February 17, 2018, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall

NEW YORK ––  Juilliard Historical Performance presents “Handel in Rome” featuring Juilliard415 and, making its debut at Juilliard, Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis on Saturday, February 17, 2018, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall. Faculty member Elizabeth Blumenstock will serve as concertmaster. The all-Handel program features Nisi Dominus, HWV 238; the Violin Concerto in B-flat Major, HWV 288 with Juilliard violinist Sarah Jane Kenner; Laudate pueri Dominum, HWV 237 with Juilliard soprano Anneliese Klenetsky; and Dixit Dominus, HWV 232. Handel spent time in Italy in Florence, Rome, Venice, and Naples from 1706 through early 1710. He arrived in Rome at the beginning of 1707, and this concert covers that period.

Tickets at $20 ($10 for full-time students) are available at juilliard.edu/calendar.

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

About Elizabeth Blumenstock

Elizabeth Blumenstock is a longtime concertmaster, soloist, and leader of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Philharmonia Baroque and American Bach Soloists, concertmaster of the International Handel Festival in Göttingen, Germany, and artistic director of the Corona del Mar Baroque Music Festival. Her devotion to playing chamber music has led to her work with several accomplished smaller ensembles including Musica Pacifica, Galax Quartet, Ensemble Mirable, Live Oak Baroque, and Voices of Music. Ms. Blumenstock joined the faculty of Juilliard’s Historical Performance program last year, and also teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, American Bach Soloists’ summer Festival and Academy, International Baroque Institute at Longy, and at the Valley of the Moon Music Festival. She plays a 1660 Andrea Guarneri violin built in Cremona, Italy, on generous loan to her from the Philharmonia Baroque Period Instrument Trust.

About Vox Luminis

Vox Luminis, founded in 2004 by its artist director Lionel Meunier, is a Belgian early music ensemble. Today, the ensemble performs over 60 concerts a year, appearing on stages in Belgium, across Europe and around the world. The size and composition of the group depends on the repertoire being performed but the core soloists, mostly from the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, are joined by a continuo and additional (orchestral) instrument performers. The group’s repertoire is essentially Italian, English, and German and spans from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Its 12 recordings have appeared on the labels Alpha Classics, Ricercar, Ramée, and Musique en Wallonie and have enjoyed international critical acclaim, receiving numerous prizes and awards. Most recently, the ensemble has released Handel’s Dixit Diminus and Bach’s Magnificat. The ensemble has performed at festivals worldwide, appearing in leading halls including London’s Wigmore Hall, Paris’ Oratoire du Louvre, Madrid’s Auditoria Nacional de Música, Brussels’ Centre for Fine Arts and the Flagey Radio House, Gent’s Bijloke, Brugge’s Concertgebouw, and Lisbon’s Belem Cultural Centre. The Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam and the Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht have also welcomed Vox Luminis over recent seasons. Vox Luminis has held residencies at the Abbey of Sainte-Marie-des-Dames, the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, the Festival of Early Music in Utrecht, and the Musique et Mémoire Festival. In 2017, England’s Aldeburgh Festival hosted the ensemble for the first time and the ensemble participated in many major international events, in particular, a concert at the Philharmonies in Berlin and in Köln, a concert in Arnstadt’s Bachkirche, the Thüringer Bachwochen, and the Bachfest Leipzig. Last year Vox Luminis made its debut in the grand Salle Henry Leboeuf in Brussels to inaugurate the beginning of a five-year residence. For the next few years, Vox Luminis will be house artists at the Concertgebouw in Brugge. In addition to often working with its own orchestra, Vox Luminis frequently collaborates with other internationally renowned ensembles and orchestras. Collaborations in 2017 included projects with the Franco-Canadian Ensemble Masques and with the Freiburger Barockorchester. Vox Luminis receives support from Federation Wallonia-Brussels, the city of Namur, and Namur Confluent Culture and is recognized by the Art and Life Tours. (voxluminis.com)

About Lionel Meunier

Lionel Meunier is a musician and singer, and founder of Vox Luminis, early music vocal ensemble (2004). He is conductor and artistic director for Vox Luminis. Passionate about music from a very young age, he started his musical education in the city of Clamecy (France) with the trumpet, recorder and solfège. Mr. Meunier continued his studies at Institut Supérieur de Musique et de Pédagogie (the Superior Institute of Music and Pedagogy) in Namur where he earned his degree in recorder with great distinction. He took classes from Tatiana Babut du Marès and Hugo Reyne and master classes with Jean Tubéry. He then focused his attention on vocal studies with Rita Dams and Peter Kooij at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. At the same time he started a career as a concert musician and was soon in great demand as a soloist and joined leading ensembles including the Collegium Vocale Ghent (Herreweghe), World Youth Choir, Arsys Bourgogne (Cao), Amsterdam Baroque Choir (Koopmann), the Chamber Choir of Namur, the Favoriti de la Fenice (Tubéry), the Soloists of the Chamber Choir of Namur, Cappella Pratensis (Bull) and the soloists of the Dutch Bach Vereniging (Van Veldhoven). Over the past two years, Mr. Meunier has been increasingly in demand from many ensembles throughout Europe as coach, conductor, and artistic leader. His passionate yet thoughtful approach to the early music and a cappella repertoire, combined with the understanding of and respect for the singers, has allowed him to achieve progressively higher standards. Moreover, he is jury member for many international festivals and competitions. In 2013 he was given the title of Namur Person of the Year for Culture. Along with Vox Luminis, he regularly offers master classes, coaching sessions, and conferences on the repertoire from the end of the Renaissance period and the Baroque period.

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 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.

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Program Listings:

Saturday, February 17, 2018, 7:30pm, Alice Tully Hall

“Handel in Rome”

Juilliard415

Vox Luminis

Lionel Meunier, artistic director

Elizabeth Blumenstock, concertmaster

Sarah Jane Kenner, violin

Anneliese Klenetsky, soprano

 

George Frideric HANDEL Nisi Dominus, HWV 238

HANDEL Violin Concerto in B-flat Major, HWV 288

HANDEL Laudate pueri Dominum, HWV 237

HANDEL Dixit Dominus, HWV 232

Tickets at $20 ($10 for full-time students) are available at juilliard.edu/calendar.