ASPECT Foundation Presents Fretwork Ensemble In Bach's THE ART OF FUGUE At Italian Academy

The ASPECT Foundation for Music & Arts presents J.S. Bach: The Art of Fugue on Thursday, April 12, 2018 at 7:30 p.m. at The Italian Academy, part of the foundation's second New York City season of illuminating performances featuring many of the most prominent performers and musical scholars of today.

The evening features the UK's lauded viol concert, Fretwork Ensemble, in Bach's The Art of Fugue, one of his last works and the culmination of his lifelong obsession with counterpoint. Fretwork co-founder and Royal College of Music professor Richard Boothby presents an illustrated performance and discusses some of the music's most intriguing features, including an analysis of the final fugue and a demonstration of a possible reconstruction of its missing final bars. Of Fretwork's acclaimed recording of The Art of Fugue, The Guardian writes, "For anyone wanting to get to grips with the myriad subtleties of Bach's contrapuntal writing their playing offers a wonderfully faithful guide"

Additional concerts in ASPECT Foundations' 2017-18 season include "Weimar: The Cradle of Musical Talent" on Thursday, April 19 featuring pianist Vsevolod Dvorkin and cellist Sergey Antonov, with an illustrated talk by Stephen Johnson; and "Fête Galante: The Anatomy of Melancholy" on Thursday, May 17 featuring the Four Nations Ensemble and soprano Sherezade Panthaki, with an illustrated talk by Tav Holmes.

Few other ensembles can match the range of Fretwork's repertory, spanning from the first printed music of 1501 in Venice, to music commissioned by the group this year. This extraordinary breadth of music has taken the viola da gamba ensemble all over the world in the 33 years since their debut concert, and their recordings of the classic English viol repertory - Purcell, Gibbons, Lawes & Byrd - have become the benchmark by which others are judged. Their 2009 recording of the Purcell Fantazias won the Gramophone Magazine Award for Baroque Chamber Music. Fretwork members include viola da gamba players Asako Morikawa, Joanna Levine, Sam Stadlen, Emily Ashton, and Richard Boothby.

Formed in 1985, Fretwork's most recent album contains music by Grieg, Debussy, Shostakovitch, Warlock & Britten. The consistently high standards they have achieved have brought music old and new to audiences hitherto unfamiliar with the inspiring sound-world of the viol. Their series of discs for Virgin Classics included CDs devoted to William Lawes, Henry Purcell, William Byrd, Matthew Locke, John Dowland and Orlando Gibbons; while their more recent work for Harmonia Mundi USA has produced two discs of J.S.Bach - Art of Fugue and Alio Modo; and discs of the earliest instrumental music (Petrucci); Sir John Tavener's The Hidden Face; Thomas Tomkins; Alexander Agricola & Fabrice Fitch; Ludwig Senfl with Charles Daniels and two collaborations with the choir of Magdalen College, Oxford.

In addition to this, Fretwork have become known as pioneers of contemporary music for viols, having commissioned over 40 new works. The list of composers is like the role call of the most prominent writers of our time: George Benjamin, Michael Nyman, Sir John Tavener, Gavin Bryars, Elvis Costello, Alexander Goehr, John Woolrich, Orlando Gough, Fabrice Fitch, Peter Sculthorpe, Sally Beamish, Tan Dun, Barry Guy, Andrew Keeling, Thea Musgrave, Simon Bainbridge, Poul Ruders, John Joubert & Duncan Druce. The group now frequently presents programs consisting entirely of contemporary music, though most audiences find that the creative tension of juxtaposing old and new leads to a thrilling experience.

ASPECT Foundation for Music and Arts was founded by Irina Knaster in London in 2011 and relocated to New York City in 2016. ASPECT presents a new concert format - one that transforms the traditional recital into an intimate, engaging, and thought-provoking blend of performance, speech, and image.

The Foundation's chamber-music events feature some of today's leading musicians and music experts. For each concert, they set the works on the program in context with presentations supported by visuals. These "illustrated talks" reveal fascinating details about the composer, the music, and the cultural history of the period in question.

ASPECT aims both to support and promote artists, and to welcome audiences old and new to explore new aspects of a classical repertoire of endless riches. It's more than a concert. To find out more, please visit www.aspectfoundation.net.