Ventfort Hall Presents A Concert At Trinity Church
Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum will present The New England Baroque Soloists and the Cantilena Chamber Choir in a rare joint appearance at Trinity Church, preceded by a special pre-concert “Meet the Musicians” reception at Ventfort Hall on Saturday, May 17th.At 6:00 pm a concert of Baroque Chamber Music and new choral music presented by these two masterful groups promises to provide a unique musical venture for our community. Featured music includes: Bach “Cantatas 12 and 147”, Monteverdi “Scherzi Musicali”, and chamber music by Handel and Vivaldi. The Choir will perform the a cappella choral masterpiece “In the Beginning” by Aaron Copland featuring Mary Ellen Verdi, mezzo-soprano.
At 4:00 pm a special pre-concert reception will allow for an opportunity to “Meet the Musicians” for Victorian Tea at the elegant 1893 Ventfort Hall mansion. Guests are invited to attend either the concert, or the Tea, or both.
The New England Baroque Soloists is one of the leading chamber music groups today. They play the rich and colorful repertoire of the baroque period featuring newly discovered works in addition to well known compositions. Members include violinist Joel Pitchon, Associate Professor of violin and chamber music at Smith College in Massachusetts; cellist Ron Feldman, music director of the Berkshire Symphony; trumpet and horn player Douglas Myers, soloist with many orchestras in the U.S., Europe and Asia; oboist Ellen Katz Willner, member of the American Ballet Theatre orchestra; and keyboard player James Kennerly, active in the New York area as organist, pianist, conductor, coach, teacher and musicologist. .
The Cantilena Chamber Choir is the Berkshire region's premiere a cappella choir. It is comprised of 24 singers who possess vocal training, good sight-reading skills, and considerable choral experience. Last season the Choir performed with the Empire Brass at the Colonial Theater, presented a concert of works by Berkshire Composers, performed in a special benefit for the Lenox Library with Shakespeare and Company’s Annette Miller, collaborated with Boston University’s Tanglewood Two symposium in June at Williams College, and ended its season with Aston Magna in an August 2007 production of “Dido and Aeneus”.
The Choir is under the artistic direction of Andrea Goodman who is also the Director of the Saratoga Choral Festival, an annual summer concert series for chorus and orchestra in Saratoga Springs, New York. Last fall she was a visiting professor of conducting at the New England Conservatory of Music where she also directs the women’s choir. Dr. Goodman holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting and teaches music sight-reading for adults on Tuesday evenings in Lenox.
Tickets are $35 for a combined ticket (concert and Tea), or concert only at $25 ($10 for students), or the “Meet the Musicians” Victorian Tea only at $15 for adults, $12 for Ventfort Hall members. Reservations are recommended at 413-637-3206. For more information, visit www.GildedAge.org. Ventfort Hall is located at 104 Walker Street in Lenox.
An Official Project of Save America’s Treasures, Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum offers tours of the historic mansion, as well as lectures, concerts, exhibits, teas, theater and other programs. This elegant Elizabethan-Revival Berkshire “cottage,” listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is open to the public year-round and is available for private rental. Built in 1893 for George and Sarah Morgan (sister of the financier, J. Pierpont Morgan), Ventfort Hall has undergone substantial restoration, which continues.
