Red Priest, baroque ensemble

Sunday, March 10 – 3pm – Buy Tickets!

pre-concert talk – 2pm

Hudson Hall, Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center, Willamette University

Red Priest, baroque ensemble
Nikolas Caoile, principal conductor

Program:

• Bach – Brandenburg Concerto No. 5
• Vivaldi – Cello Concerto in G Major RV 414
• Bedford – Concerto for Recorder and String Orchestra (North American premier)
• Schubert – Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, D.485
• Prokofiev – Piano Concerto No. 3, first movement – Sherry Liang, pianist, winner of the 2012 Willamette Solo & Aria Competition

Tickets:

Adults: $20-$30, Students: $10-$15
Reserved seating
Call Travel Salem: 503-581-4325 or order online. There are never any ticket fees for ordering in advance!
The box office will open at 1:30pm the day of the concert. Cash, checks, and all major credit cards are accepted.

From the Principal Conductor, Nikolas Caoile:

We have a very special concert for you as Salem Chamber Orchestra presents our third installment of the Bach is Rock series. The concert will begin with Schubert’s sunny Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major. Written in under a month, this work displays many of Schubert’s musical gifts: lyricism with adolescent purity set against harmonic explorations that provide dramatic impact.

This opening piece gives way to our 2012 Willamette Solo and Aria Competition Winner, Sherry Liang. A student of Willamette Professor of Piano, Jean-David Coen, the biology major will perform the first movement from Prokofiev’s ambitious 3rd Piano Concerto. Prokofiev’s work emphasizes sarcastic dissonance while at the same time experimenting with unique orchestral combinations. The orchestra serves to enhance the beautiful percussive colors of the piano.

After intermission, we are honored to welcome the UK Baroque ensemble, Red Priest. This ensemble aims to break all the rules of early music, while at the same time maintaining a very high level of artistry. This redefinition of period practice reminds us all that musical expression is ultimately at the discretion of the performer. First, Angela East will perform Vivaldi’s crisp Cello Concerto in G-Major. Then, Red Priest will serve as the soloists for Bach’s imaginative Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. This piece includes with it solos for flauto traverse, violin and an extended ‘mad-scientist’ cadenza for the harpsichordist! Finally, the program will conclude with a North American premiere of the David Bedford Concerto for Recorder and String Orchestra. I’d like to personally thank Red Priest for sharing their gifts with us as they present these fresh approaches to these wonderful works.

Pre-Concert Talk:

Join Principal Conductor Nikolas Caoile for a talk about the music you’re about to hear. Pre-concert talks begin at 2pm in Hudson Hall at Willamette University. The doors will open at 1:45pm.

Open Dress Rehearsal:

The open dress rehearsal for this program is on Saturday, March 9 from 10am-12:30pm in Hudson Hall. Click here for more information about the open dress rehearsals.

Additional Performance:

Red Priest will perform a recital with the Grace Goudy Distinguished Artists Series on Friday, March 8 at 7:30pm, also in Hudson Hall. Tickets for this event are sold through Travel Salem and Box Office Tickets.

Venue Information:

For a map, campus map, and driving directions to Willamette University, click here.
Free customer parking is available in any of the Willamette University lots. Parking permits are not required on weekends.

Thank You to our Sponsors:

Dr. Theodore & Monica Nicholas – Concert Sponsor
Carol Mitchell – Guest Artist Sponsor

The Music:

About the Artists:
Red Priest is the only early music group in the world to have been compared in the press to the Rolling Stones, Jackson Pollock, the Marx Brothers, Spike Jones and the Cirque du Soleil. This extraordinary acoustic foursome has been described by music critics as ‘visionary and heretical’, ‘outrageous yet compulsive’, ‘wholly irreverent and highly enlightened’, ‘completely wild and deeply imaginative’, with a ‘red-hot wicked sense of humour’ and a ‘break-all-rules, rock-chamber concert approach to early music’.

Founded in 1997, and named after the flame-haired priest, Antonio Vivaldi, Red Priest has given several hundred sell-out concerts in many of the world’s most prestigious festivals, including the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Moscow December Nights Festival, Schwetzingen Festival, Prague Spring Festival, Ravinia Festival, Bermuda Festival, and in most European countries, Japan, Australia, and throughout North and Central America. The group has been the subject of hour-long TV profiles for NHK (Japan) and ITV (UK) – the latter for the prestigious South Bank Show in 2005, which documented the launch of the Red Hot Baroque Show, an electrifying marriage of old music with the latest light and video technology.

In its regular line-up Red Priest comprises recorder player Piers Adams, violinist Julia Bishop, cellist Angela East and harpsichordist David Wright. In America and the Far East the group collaborates with the Canadian baroque/Cape-Breton violinist David Greenberg in place of Julia Bishop. These musicians have redefined the art of period performance, creating a virtual orchestra through their creative arrangements, performing from memory with swashbuckling virtuosity, heart-on-sleeve emotion and compelling stagecraft. Their repertoire ranges from obscure 17th century sonatas to the most famous works of Bach and Vivaldi, all presented in imaginative programmes with filmic titles: ‘Priest on the Run’, ‘Nightmare in Venice’, ‘Pirates of the Baroque’, ‘Johann, I’m Only Dancing’.

In 2008 Red Priest launched its own record label, Red Priest Recordings, which is now the home for all of the recordings of the ensemble and its members, and has attracted much attention in the music press worldwide. The label is distributed worldwide by Nimbus.

Piers Adams was recently heralded in the Washington Post as ‘the reigning recorder virtuoso in the world today’. He has performed in numerous festivals and at premiere concert halls throughout the world, including London’s Royal Festival, Wigmore and QueenElizabethHalls, and as concerto soloist with the Philharmonia, the English Sinfonia, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Singapore Symphony and the BBC Symphony. In addition to his work with Red Priest Piers has made several solo CDs reflecting an eclectic taste, ranging from his award-winning Vivaldi début disc to David Bedford’s Recorder Concerto – one of many major works written for and premiered by him. He has also researched, arranged and recorded many classical, romantic, impressionist and folk-influenced showpieces, which are a mainstay of his recital programmes. For further information please visit www.piersadams.com

Angela East is widely respected as one of the most brilliant and dynamic performers in the period instrument world, praised in The Times, London, for the ‘elemental power’ of her cello playing. She has given numerous concerto performances in London’s Queen Elizabeth and Wigmore Halls, and has performed as soloist and continuo cellist with many of Europe’s leading baroque orchestras. Among her impressive list of concert credits are La Scala, Milan, Sydney Opera House, Versailles and Glyndebourne. In 1991 Angela formed ‘The Revolutionary Drawing Room’ which performs chamber works from the revolutionary period in Europe on original instruments, and whose first eight CDs have received glowing reviews world-wide. Her long awaited disc of Bach’s Cello Suites has recently been released on Red Priest Recordings. Her CD of popular baroque cello works, ‘Baroque Cello Illuminations’, has received excellent reviews and was chosen as ‘CD of the Fortnight’ in Classical Music Magazine.

David Wright has established himself as a prominent figure in the early music world. He was an almost entirely self taught musician before gaining a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where he won several prizes, including the International Broadwood Competition, and graduated with distinction. He has worked with some of the world’s leading musicians including Emma Kirkby and James Bowman and performed as a soloist with many groups of international renown. He has directed numerous concerts from the harpsichord, including the first modern performance of Arne’s The Blind Beggar of Bethnel Green, and is guest conductor to several orchestras on the continent. Much of David’s time in recent years has been devoted to performing the Goldberg Variations, which he recorded in 2007 and has since toured extensively. With many television and radio broadcasts to his credit, David continues to pursue a busy and varied career as a harpsichordist and became a permanent member of Red Priest in January 2011.

David Greenberg – Red Priest’s regular US guest violinist – taught himself folk fiddle tunes by ear as a young child growing up in Maryland. In the mid 80s he studied baroque violin with Stanley Ritchie. Greenberg spent the 1990s with Tafelmusik while developing a speciality in Scottish baroque-folk music, recording three groundbreaking CDs in this genre with the group Puirt A Baroque. He immersed himself in Cape Breton traditional music and co-authored the popular treatise on Cape Breton fiddle music, the DunGreen Collection, with his wife, Kate Dunlay. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In addition to Red Priest, regular collaborators include his own Tempest ensemble, David McGuinness, Chris Norman and Doug MacPhee.

Sherry Liang, pianist

Seventeen-year-old pianist Sherry Liang started playing the piano at age 5 and currently studies with Dr. Jean-David Coen. Her former teacher was Barbara Parker. In 2011, Sherry won the MTNA Senior Division State Competition, and represented Oregon at the regional level, placing 2nd. In addition, she was recently a winner of the 2012 MetroArts Young Artist Concerto Competition and performed with members of the Oregon Symphony and Oregon Ballet Theater with conductor Niel Deponte. Sherry also performed with the Jewish Community Orchestra in 2011 and the Mt. Hood Pops Orchestra in 2010 as their young artist winner. Her past achievements include winning the 2009 Suzanne Raines Scholarship Competition, the 2012 Marjorie Trotter Scholarship Competition, the 2012 OMTA State Scholarship Competition, and multiple OMTA Classical, Baroque, and Romantic festivals since 2005. She was also a Monday Musical Club scholarship recipient in 2012 and received a $2,000 award. She has participated in master classes with Arnaldo Cohen, Mark Westcott, Hans Boepple, Alexander Dossin, Antonio Consales, Yana Reznik, and Yong Hi Moon. As a freshman at Willamette University, Sherry is currently a pre-med student, receiving a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance with a minor in Chemistry. Also being an avid language learner, Sherry plans to go to Quito, Ecuador this summer to study Spanish. On campus, she is a member of Willamette’s debate union, the Asian Student Association, Alianza Club, and Mosaic Mentoring. Aside from that, Sherry enjoys shopping, trying new ethnic cuisines, traveling, and hanging out with her friends.