Repast Baroque Ensemble Presents “Them Foreigners” Period Instrument Concerts

Repast Baroque Ensemble will present “Them Foreigners”: Musical Portraits of “The Other,” period instrument concerts on Thursday, October 18 at McKinney Chapel, First Unitarian Church, 116 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn Heights and Friday, October 19 at Advent Lutheran Church, 2504 Broadway at 93^rd St. in Manhattan – 8:00 PM both evenings.

Many Baroque composers made musical characterizations of peoples who were exotic to them, such as Native Americans, Turkish, Polish, and French. Tapping into the current national issues about immigration and racism, Repast presents works by Lully, Telemann, Guignon and Rameau that give a cultural flashback to relevant issues of encountering “the other” in musical discourse.

Telemann wrote this about the subject in his 1740 autobiography, “When the court spent half a year in Pless, … I became acquainted … with Polish and Hanakian music in its true barbaric beauty….One can hardly believe what wonderful ideas such bagpipe players or fiddlers have when they improvise while the dancers rest. In eight days, an observant person could snap up enough ideas from them to last a lifetime. Suffice it to say that there is very much in this music that is good, if it is handled properly. Since this time, I have written various large concertos and trios in this style, clothing them in an Italian dress with alternating Adagios and Allegros."

Performers will be Amelia Roosevelt & Beth Wenstrom, violins, Stephanie Corwin, bassoon, Sarah Stone, viola da gamba and Gabe Shuford, harpsichord.  

Tickets are $30 General Admission, $20 seniors and $10 students. Thursday tickets at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3610105 and Friday at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3610114.

All Repast concert venues are fully ADA accessible. For more concert information, call 347-453-9137.

Founded in 2003 in New York City, Repast performs on period instruments and has been part of Miller Theatre’s Bach and the Baroque series, and been presented by the Getty Center in Los Angeles; Bargemusic; the Miami Bach Society; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Peak Performances, and many other venues. Repast presents a concert series of three programs a year, each performed in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The group has been featured on WKCR and Vermont Public radio, and its CD on the MSR Classics label is aired frequently on radio stations nationally. Visit them at http://www.repastbaroque.org/. Their new CD of their own arrangement of the Goldberg Variations by JS Bach will be appearing later this year.

Repast’s concert season is made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. 

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