Fisher Center Presents
Bard Baroque Ensemble
7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
The Bard Baroque Ensemble, under the direction of Renée Anne Louprette, presents its debut performance in the Fisher Center, featuring works by Bach, Handel, and Mozart dedicated to the memory of Frederick Fisher Hammond (1937–2023), Professor Emeritus and the Irma Brandeis Chair of Romance Cultures and Music History.
The program celebrates the restoration of Professor Hammond’s French double-manual and Italian single-manual harpsichords—now a part of Bard College’s collection of early keyboard instruments—featuring them in the Concerto for Two Harpsichords, Strings, and Continuo in C Minor, BWV 1060 by Johann Sebastian Bach, with Sophia Cornicello and Raymond Erickson as harpsichord soloists.
One of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s most popular and enduring works, Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550, opens the program, interpreted by the Ensemble with a Baroque sensibility. Bard faculty member and distinguished tenor Rufus Müller presents the ravishing opening aria from Handel’s Serse: Ombra mai fu (Never was a shade).
The program concludes with Bach’s Cantata No. 1: Wie schön leuchtet Der Morgenstern (How brightly shines the Morningstar), featuring the Bard Chamber Singers, Preparatory Division Children’s Chorus, and soloists from the Graduate Vocal Arts Program. This luminous chorale-cantata—originally conceived for the Feast of the Annunciation—is presented here in the context of transition from darkness to light, on the date of Holy Saturday within the Christian Church. Valentina Grasso, Assistant Professor of History at Bard, will present a reading from Dante’s Divine Comedy—in lieu of the traditional Lutheran sermon—at the center of Bach’s 1725 masterpiece.
For more information, call 845-758-7900, e-mail [email protected],
or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/bard-baroque-ensemble/.
Time: 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Location: Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater
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