Ravinia 2025 Issue 5

repeated notes in the accompaniment. It was traditionally played by a sextet, including two violins, piano, double bass, bandoneón (an ac- cordion-type instrument), and guitar. Our resident composer, René Schiffer, shares these comments about his piece: My “Tango” Concerto originated in 2000 as a playful attempt to show that the gamba can be a loud instrument, and that Baroque and Classical composers were wrong in their failure to provide us with true con- certos for it. Thanks to the use of chords and dou- ble stops, the two gambas easily stand out in this piece against an ensemble of strings and guitars. And indeed, when the piece was recorded on CD by Apollo’s Fire, it was shown that the gambas held their own against a whole string orchestra. The tango’s signature elements of rhythmic sim- plicity and harmonic ostinato structure are also characteristic of many baroque dance forms used to conclude many pieces of the time. We close the program with my arrangement of Vivaldi’s trio sonata, La Folia (“Madness”). The traditional folia tune and dance served as inspiration for Vivaldi as well as several other Baroque composers (Corelli, Marias, Gemini- ani, and C.P.E. Bach). Scholars believe that the dance originated in Portugal, where young girls would engage in the “folly” or “madness” of a wild dance around the fire. The folia is a tri- ple-meter ground bass, beginning in a haughty sarabande-like rhythm, and traditionally grow- ing faster and faster toward the end. The tune is full of the dramatic tension of courtship and seduction. Vivaldi’s version of La Folia , which I believe is the finest of them all, was originally a trio sonata: I arranged it as a concerto grosso so that all of us could join in the fray. –Program notes © 2025 Jeannette Sorrell APOLLO’S FIRE Grammy-winning period-instrument orchestra—led by award-winning harpsichordist and conductor Jeannette Sorrell—is dedicated to the baroque concept of moving the passions of the listeners. In Eu- rope and the UK, Apollo’s Fire has performed six tours, including sold-out concerts at the BBC Proms in London, the Aldeburgh Festival, Madrid’s Royal Theatre, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and Bordeaux’s GrandThéàtre de l’Opéra, as well as acclaimed appearances at the Heidelberg Spring Festival, Irish Na- tional Concert Hall (Dublin), Irish National Opera House (Wexford), and venues in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, and Portugal. North American tour engagements include Carnegie Hall (2018 and ’22), Tanglewood (2015, ’17, and ’21), Ravinia (2017, ’18, ’21, ’23 and ’24), New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (numerous times), the Boston Early Music Festival series, the Library of Congress, the Aspen and Caramoor Festivals, and major venues in Toronto, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. At home in Cleveland and Chicago, Apollo’s Fire frequently enjoys sold-out performances on its subscription series, which have drawn national attention for creative programming. With over 20 million views of its YouTube videos, Apollo’s Fire is one of the most popular baroque orchestras on the internet. Apollo’s Fire has released 34 commercial CDs, winning a Grammy Award in 2019 for the album Songs of Orpheus with tenor Karim Sulayman. Recordings of Bach’s St. John Passion, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons , and Monteverdi’s Vespers have been named best in the field by London’s Sunday Times (2020 and 2021) and BBC Magazine (2022). Thirteen of the ensemble’s albums have become bestsellers on Billboard ’s Classical chart, including Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (2021; #2), Monteverdi’s Vespers, Bach’s Branden- burg Concertos and Harpsichord Concertos, The Power of Love featuring Handel arias with soprano Amanda Forsythe (2015; #3), Songs of Orpheus (2018; #5), and five of Jeannette Sorrell’s multicultural programs: Come to the River: An Early American Gathering (2011; #9); Sacrum Mysterium: A Celtic Christmas Vespers (2012; #11); Sugarloaf Mountain: An Appalachian Gathering (2015; #5) ; Sephardic Journey: Wanderings of the Spanish Jews (2016; #5); and Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain (2018; #3). Violins Alan Choo concertmaster Susanna Perry Gilmore assoc. concertmaster Emi Tanabe principal Hanna Bingham Freya Creech Aniela Eddy Andrew Fouts Viola Elizabeth Holzman Hagen principal Yael Senamaud Cohen Kiyoe Matsuura Cello & Viola da Gamba René Schiffer principal Rebecca Landell Contrabass Sue Yelanjian Recorder Daphna Mor Kathie Stewart Traverso Kathie Stewart Theorbo/Guitar William Simms Brandon Acker Percussion Anthony Taddeo Harpsichord Jeannette Sorrell Jeannette Sorrell is internationally recognized as one of today’s most compelling interpreters of Baroque and Classical repertoire. The subject of the documentary Playing with Fire—Jeannette Sorrell and the Mysteries of Conducting , creat- ed by Oscar-winning director Allan Miller and commercially released in 2023, she has birdged the period-instrument and symphonic worlds from a young age. Sorrell studied conducting with Leonard Bernstein, Roger Norrington, and Robert Spano, one of the youngest students ever accepted into the conducting programs at Tanglewood and Aspen. She also studied harp- sichord with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam, later winning the top prize of the 1991 Spivey International Harpsichord Competition, which comprised over 70 musicians from across four continents. In demand as a guest conductor, Sorrell earned rave reviews in her 2021 New York Philharmonic debut and returned in 2023 and 2025. She has also had multiple engagements with such ensembles as the Saint Paul and Los Angeles Chamber Or- chestras, Pittsburgh and Seattle Symphonies, Philharmonia Baroque (San Francisco), and New World Symphony. Recent highlights have included performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra (Handel’s Messiah ), Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (Bach’s Saint John Pas- sion), Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, National Symphony at The Kennedy Center, Orchestra of St Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, Royal Northern Sinfonia (UK),and the Baltimore, Houston, Indianapolis, and New Jersey Symphonies. Upcoming engagements in 2025/26 include return engagements with the New York Philharmonic and Detroit and Indianapolis Symphonies, and debuts with the Manchester Hallé Orchestra (UK) and the Oregon Symphony. RAVINIAMAGAZINE • AUG. 4 – AUG. 17, 2025 74 ROGERMASTROIANNI(SORRELL)