A Patient Enduring: These words from one of tonight's selections describe the condition of all of us who cherish live musical performance. Grateful to offer a simulacrum, tonight's performers emerge from isolation to share Medieval conductus and ballade, English lute song, and duets from the early Italian Baroque.
Please click here for program notes for tonight’s highly anticipated program.
Since first arriving at UIUC in 1983, Kristina Boerger has (so far) spent 19 years (half of her adult life!) living in Urbana-Champaign, where she earned three music degrees, co-parented three beautiful persons, agitated successfully for a University policy against heterosexist discrimination, founded and directed to national recognition AMASONG: Champaign-Urbana’s Premier Lesbian/Feminist Chorus, served as Visiting Interim Director of Choral Activities at the UIUC School of Music, and loved many a community member. To see all she has done with her other 19 years of adulthood, please visit www.kristinaboerger.com. Meanwhile, she is grateful for her hometown’s invitation to take her brutally pandemic-silenced professional life off mute for this occasion. This concert reunites her with colleagues from her previous incarnations as a chamber singer in the concert life of New York City and as a conductor with the Madison Early Music Festival. Boerger currently resides in Minneapolis, where she is the John N. Schwartz Professor of Choral Leadership at Augsburg University.
Soprano Sarah Brailey has been hailed by The New York Times for her “exquisitely phrased” singing and by Opera UK for “a sound of remarkable purity.” Recent highlights include Handel’s Messiah with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, performing John Zorn’s Madrigals in front of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum, and The Soul in the world premiere recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison, for which she has received a 2021 GRAMMY Nomination for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. Co-founder of the Just Bach concert series in Madison, Wisconsin, Sarah is also the Artistic Director of the Handel Aria Competition, and co-host of the early music program Musica Antiqua on WORT 89.9FM. Sarah is a member of Beyond Artists, a coalition of artists that donates a percentage of their concert fee to organizations they care about. Sarah supports NRDC, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, and the Animal Welfare Institute. Learn more at www.sarahbrailey.com.
Brandon Acker is a classical guitarist and specialist on early plucked instruments such as the lute, baroque guitar and theorbo. His latest passion has been to run his successful Youtube channel which now has over 260,000 subscribers and 14 million views. His channel provides educational content about early plucked instruments as well as guitar tips and artistic performance videos. His interest in education has led him to found a new online music school with his wife called Arpeggiato which offers lessons in “All things that go pluck.” In the few months since it opened in 2020, the school has already taught over 500 lessons to students around the world and in countries like Saudi Arabia, Japan, The Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Australia and more. Brandon’s performance career has varied from starting out playing electric guitar in metal bands to his current main focus researching and performing on early plucked instruments from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. He has toured extensively through England, Canada, Scotland and Wales, and performed with notable groups such as the Leipzig Baroque Orchestra, Piffaro, the Joffrey Ballet, the Chicago Philharmonic, the Newberry Consort, Haymarket Opera Company, Music of the Baroque, Third Coast Baroque, Opera Lafayette and Bella Voce.
BACH believes, in this time of social distancing, that music is more important than ever. We are excited to present a very different 2020-2021 season, but one that still allows us to come together virtually to enjoy wonderful music with archival performances of some of BACH's greatest concerts.
Donations may be made at www.baroqueartists.org/donate