Violinist Risa Browder has an admitted obsession with the music of the early Baroque Era. “I have loved [early music] ever since I first came into contact with it, when I was a student at Oberlin,” she recalled. “There’s a sort of looking into the past, like a detective, and trying to find little clues as to what life was like; what music was like.”
Having performed with many of Europe’s greatest early music ensembles, including London Baroque and Academy of Ancient Music, Browder is well known to District concert-goers for her performances with Folger Consort. Saturday evening, she joins the Bach Sinfonia at the Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center to lead the ensemble in a conductorless program of selected works of the Italian Baroque period.
| Onstage |
| The Bach Sinfonia |
| Where: Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center, 7995 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring |
| When: 8 p.m. Saturday, 7:15 p.m. pre-concert discussion |
| Info: $15 to $30; children under 14 free, Bachsinfonia.org, 301-362-6525 |
Browder will be joined onstage by 15 members of the Sinfonia, who all perform on period instruments, such as the theorbo (a large lute) and the harpsichord.
“This is really large chamber music,” Browder explained. “As opposed to a full orchestra, we can all see each other, hear each other and play off [each other] and it’s so natural.”
In an evening of music the Sinfonia has titled “Suoni Belli: Instrumental Wonders of the Italian Baroque,” this home-grown group of players has chosen a repertoire of the familiar coupled with more obscure pieces of the period.
Included in the program is a double viola sonata by Tomaso Albinoni, a trumpet sonata by Giuseppe Torelli (with Joshua Cohen performing as trumpet soloist), a concerto by Alessandro Scarlatti and two concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, one of which, Concerto for Two Trumpets in C Major, features both Joshua Cohen and Stanley Curtis as soloists.
“Vivaldi has become one of the most famous Baroque composers — his music is very exciting to perform,” Browder continued. “We know Vivaldi [but] there are all these other composers of the day that deserve to be heard. I think it is fun sometimes to hear a very famous composer with his less famous companions.”
