Robert Mealy and Friends

Robert Mealy is the preeminent American period instrument violinist. Praised for his “imagination, taste, subtlety, and daring” (The Boston Globe), he is joined by longtime partners for a concert of dazzlingly virtuosic and brilliantly extravagant music by such 17th-century innovators as Castello, Pandolfi, Erlebach, Biber, and Schmelzer.

Part of Salon Encores.

Robin Blaze, Countertenor
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute

The late–16th-century English lute song represents one of the great fusions of words and music. When the words are Shakespeare’s, the results are transcendent. Countertenor Robin Blaze is renowned for his interpretations of this beautiful music, and his “exquisitely controlled expressiveness ensures that the tiniest nuance in text and music makes its best effect” (The Telegraph). One of the foremost lutenists of the day, Elizabeth Kenny joins Blaze for an evening of deeply moving music.

Mahan Esfahani, Harpsichord

One of the most gifted harpsichordists of our time explores two centuries of music from Italy, France, Germany, and Bohemia in his Carnegie Hall debut. Frescobaldi’s wild flights of invention made him one of the most celebrated Italian composers of the 17th century and influenced composers across the continent. A century later, the refined beauty of Rameau’s keyboard music represented the pinnacle of the French tradition. Bach drew from all traditions—the Italian and early French styles—to create the finest keyboard music of the Baroque.