BRATTLEBORO-Sarasa Ensemble's upcoming performance at the Brattleboro Music Center (BMC) Friday, Sept. 12, at 7 p.m. focuses on works heard by 18th-century audiences.
The program, "@1775 in Boston, London, Paris & Vienna," will include works popular with audiences in four capital cities in the mid- to late-1700s, by composers like Billings, Arne, J.C. Bach, Barsanti, Cervetto, Baltzar, Lanzetti, Haydn, and Mozart.
"Do not neglect your music," Thomas Jefferson once wrote his daughter. "It will be a companion which will sweeten many hours of life to you."
Carley DeFranco, soprano; Susanna Ogata, violin; Jennifer Morsches and Timothy Merton, cello; and Andrus Madsen, fortepiano, will be performing.
A cross-pollination of music from European 18th-century concert societies, along with the music of Boston-born William Billings - the first American to publish his own collection of music with engravings by none other than Paul Revere - will bring more significant historical context to the performance.
The program is part of the semi-quincentennial celebration of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, taking place in eastern Massachusetts in 2025, and highlights works which would have been performed around the time of the American Revolution. In celebrating these historical local events with the larger community, Sarasa hopes to engage a larger, younger, and more diverse audience with music that inspired the Founding Fathers.
The Sarasa Ensemble is a collective of extraordinary international instrumentalists and vocalists who perform classical music of outstanding quality, spanning the 17th to the 21st centuries, on both period and modern instruments, and bring this music to diverse communities.
Tickets are $20 for advance general admission, $25 at the door and are available via bmcvt.org, 802-257-4523, and info@bmcvt.org.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.