Five Boroughs Music Festival Presents Baroque Ensemble Les Délices, Feb 23 & 24

Program Combines 17th and 20th Century Music, Featuring Works by Michel Lambert, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marin Marais, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, and Stephen Sondheim

NEW YORK, NY (January 10, 2019) — Five Boroughs Music Festival (5BMF) presents Les Délices in their new program, Songs Without Words, in two concerts:

• Saturday, February 23 at 7:30pm in the Old First Reformed Church (729 Carroll St., Brooklyn)
• Sunday, February 24 at 3:00pm in Flushing Town Hall (137-35 Northern Blvd., Queens)

Adapting 17th Century songs and fusing them with 20th Century jazz standards, Les Délices is featured in a program of arrangements and improvisations inspired by Baroque composers Michel Lambert, Jean-Baptiste Lully, and Marin Marais alongside popular tunes by Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, and Stephen Sondheim.

Additional 5BMF performances in the 2018-19 season include the Grammy-nominated Aizuri Quartet on March 22; a collaboration with pianist Martin Katz and the Brooklyn Art Song Society in Hugo Wolf: The Complete Mörike-Lieder on April 28, May 3 and 4; and two special programs celebrating LGBT composers and librettists in collaboration with the New York Festival of Song and the LGBT Community Center (“The Center”) on June 11 and 25.

Program Information
SONGS WITHOUT WORDS
Debra Nagy, baroque oboe
Mélisande Corriveau, viola da gamba & pardessus de viole  
Eric Milnes, harpsichord 

Wordless Song
Eric Milnes: Prelude (improvisation)
Marin Marais: Prélude & Les Voix humaines

Feeling Wistful
Jean-Baptiste de Bousset: Pourquoi dous rossignol
Billy Strayhorn: A Flower is a lovesome thing
Johnny Mandel: Emily

Love’s First Blush
Jean-Baptiste de Bousset: De mes soupirs
Erroll Garner/Johnny Burke: Misty

Burning Passion
Joseph Chabanceau de la Barre: J’avois juré
La Barre: Allez bergers
Michel Lambert: D’un feu secret

Crazy
Patsy Cline/Willie Nelson: Crazy
Folies d’espagne after Marin Marais, arr. Les Délices
Edith Piaf: La Foule

Chains of Love
Jean-Baptiste Lully: Recit de la beauté
Paul McCartney/John Lennon: Michelle

Heartbreak
Stephen Sondheim: Send in the Clowns

Never give up
Marin Marais: Prelude in a minor
Nina Simone: Tomorrow is my turn

I wouldn’t have it any other way…
Michel Lambert: Vos mespris
Joseph Kosma/Johnny Mercer: Autumn Leaves 

Saturday, February 23 at 7:30pm
Old First Reformed Church | 729 Carroll St., Brooklyn

Sunday, February 24 at 3:00pm
Flushing Town Hall | 137-35 Northern Blvd., Queens

Tickets:
Tickets range from $15 to $35 and can be purchased at www.5bmf.org.

About Les Délices
Les Délices explores the dramatic potential and emotional resonance of long-forgotten music. Founded by baroque oboist Debra Nagy in 2009, Les Délices has established its reputation for unique programs that are “thematically concise, richly expressive, and featuring composers few people have heard of.” The New York Times added, “Concerts and recordings by Les Délices are journeys of discovery.” The ensemble’s debut CD was named one of the "Top Ten Early Music Discoveries of 2009" (NPR's Harmonia), and the group’s performances have been called "a beguiling experience" (Cleveland Plain Dealer), "astonishing" (ClevelandClassical.com), and "first class" (Early Music America Magazine). Since Les Délices’ sold-out New York debut at the Frick Collection, touring highlights have included Music Before 1800, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, San Francisco Early Music Society, the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, and Columbia University’s Miller Theater. Les Délices also presents its own annual four-concert series in Cleveland art galleries and at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, OH, where the group is Artist in Residence. Les Délices has been featured on WCPN, WCLV and WKSU in Ohio, WQXR in New York, NPR's syndicated Harmonia and Sunday Baroque, and had their debut CD featured as part of the Audio-guide for a special exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (Watteau, Music, and Theater). Les Délices 3rd CD, "Age of Indulgence" was released on the Navona label in June 2017. Learn more at www.lesdelices.org.

Image at the top courtesy of Les Délices

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