Chatham Baroque to Usher in Holidays at Quick Center

The period-instrument ensemble Chatham Baroque performs at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4, in the fourth concert of the Friends of Good Music season at St. Bonaventure University’s Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts.

Guest artists joining the ensemble will be soprano Marguerite Krull, Erica March on violin, and chamber organist Adam Pearl.

Chatham Baroque will present a splendid program of holiday music played on authentic instruments. This music was written in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the transcendent story of the birth of Jesus was told through music in the form of songs, motets, oratorios and cantatas. The music could be heard in the palaces and churches of France, Germany, and Italy.

Opening with Scarlatti’s cantata “O, di Betlemme altera,” the ensemble will draw from a broad repertoire that encompasses everything from works by Johann Joseph Fux, Heinz Ignaz Biber and Dietrich Buxtehude to the instrumental version of the popular French songs “A Suite of French Noels” by Charpentier.

Founded in 1990 and based in Pittsburgh, Chatham Baroque has excited local, national, and international audiences with dazzling technique and lively interpretations. The trio of Andrew Fouts, baroque violin, Patricia Halverson, viola da gamba, and Scott Pauley, theorbo, was named “Classical Artists of 1999” by National Public Radio as a result of votes by music consumers worldwide.

Chatham Baroque has toured all over the United States as well as in South America and Mexico, in the Virgin Islands and in Canada. This season, their performances at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., were called “musically impeccable” by the Washington Post.

Heard regularly on many public radio stations, Chatham Baroque has also been heard on CBC Radio in Canada as well as NPR’s “Performance Today” and “Harmonia.” The group has recorded seven CDs on the Dorian label.

This performance is supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts.

Tickets are $20 at full cost, $16 for St. Bonaventure staff and senior citizens, and $5 for students. For tickets and information, call The Quick Center box office at (716) 375-2494.

For each Friends of Good Music performance, The Quick Center will open its galleries one hour before the performance and keep them open throughout the intermission. Regular gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Museum admission is free and open to the public year round. For more information, visit www.sbu.edu/quickcenter.