Two performances:

Saturday, December 19, 3:00 pm, Old South Church, 645 Boylston Street, Boston

Sunday, December 20, 4:00 pm, First Unitarian Church, 90 Main Street, Worcester

Tickets $25 general admission, $20 seniors and students

To purchase tickets in advance or for information, call 781.466.6694
or visit www.oldpostroad.org

 

Continuing a delightful holiday tradition, Musicians of the Old Post Road announces two performances of Mediterranean Baroque Christmas, featuring ebullient and festive instrumental and vocal works from Spain, France, and Italy. The program will include lively French Nöel settings by Michel Corrette, a Christmas concerto by Giuseppe Valentini, a cantata by Antonia Bembo, and the regional premiere of Con pace si bella, a Christmas cantata by Francesco Mancini. The ensemble will be joined by acclaimed vocalists Barbara Kilduff, soprano, and Pamela Dellal, mezzo-soprano. Instrumental performers include Suzanne Stumpf, traverso, Sarah Darling, violin, Abigail Karr, violin, Daniel Ryan, cello, and Michael Bahmann, harpsichord.

Performances will take place on Saturday, December 19, 3 p.m., at Old South Church, 645 Boylston Street in Boston; and on Sunday, December 20, 3 p.m., at First Unitarian Church, 90 Main Street in Worcester.

 

Tickets are $25 general admission, $20 for seniors and students. Children ages 7 to 17 are admitted free when accompanied by an adult. Old Post Road concert sites are wheelchair accessible. For tickets and additional information, contact Musicians of the Old Post Road, 318 Bear Hill Road, Suite 9, Waltham, MA 02451, telephone (781) 466-6694, or visit OPR’s website at www.oldpostroad.org. Musicians of the Old Post Road concert series is sponsored, in part, by The Furumoto Research Foundation, The Bear Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Musicians of the Old Post Road is a chamber music ensemble specializing in the period instrument performance of music from the Baroque, Classical, and early Romantic periods. The ensemble has received national recognition for its creative programming, garnering the Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society, and awards from Chamber Music America and the U.S.–Mexico Fund for Culture. The group has appeared on New England's WCVB-TV’s “Chronicle” program and toured throughout Europe and the United States, including performances at the Tage Alter Musik Festival in Regensburg, Germany, the Boston Early Music Festival concert series, and the Indianapolis Early Music Festival. The ensemble was in residence at Dartmouth College in April, 2005. 

 

The ensemble’s acclaimed concert series, founded in 1989, brings chamber music performances to venues in cities and towns along the original route of the old Boston Post Road, the first thoroughfare connecting Boston and New York City beginning in the late seventeenth century. Sites for the concert series have included historic meetinghouses, mansions, museums, and public halls offering the architecture, acoustics, and ambiance appropriate to the music.

 

The group’s discography includes five critically acclaimed recordings: “The Virtuoso Double Bass,” “Trios and Scottish Song Settings of J. N. Hummel,” “Galant with an Attitude: Music of Juan and José Pla,” and “Quartets of Telemann and Bodinus.” A fifth CD, “Feliz Navidad: Christmas from Spain and New Spain,” was recently released on Meridian Records of London.

Committed to the music education and enrichment of young people and to reaching diverse audiences, Musicians of the Old Post Road pursues a variety of community outreach initiatives. The ensemble has brought programs and performances to inner-city students, to elderly groups, to rural audiences, to hospice residents, and to retirement communities.