Apollo's Fire Returns To New York This December

Following its sold-out debut performance at Carnegie Hall earlier this year, Apollo's Fire - The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra returns to New York bringing its new and acclaimed Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain: An Irish-Appalachian Celebration program to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 16, 2018. This program, created by Apollo's fire Founder and Artistic Director Jeannette Sorrell, explores the Celtic roots of Appalachian Christmas traditions and premiered in Cleveland in December 2017 with six sold-out concerts. The program is now available in a new recording from AVIE Records, released in October 2018.

Apollo's Fire's return to New York marks their second performance in the city in 2018. In March, the ensemble made its Carnegie Hall debut to a sold-out crowd, performing its celebrated A Night at Bach's Coffeehouse program. On December 16, Apollo's Fire performs the New York premiere of Jeannette Sorrell's Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain: An Irish-Appalachian Celebration, presented by MetLiveArts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sorrell will conduct and play the harpsichord, joined by soprano Amanda Powell and tenor Ross Hauck. The core members of Apollo's Fire will be joined by additional singers, dancers, and instrumentalists in a program that includes mystical Gregorian chant from Scotland, folk carols, shape-note hymns, and toe-tapping fiddle tunes.

Adding to its already extensive discography, Apollo's Fire will see the release of the world premiere recording of the Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain: An Irish-Appalachian Celebration program on the AVIE Records label. This new recording, released on October 19, 2018, is the ensemble's 27th recording, following Sugarloaf Mountain: An Appalachian Gathering, which was a Top 5 Billboard Classical Crossover hit (2015), and Songs of Orpheus with tenor Karim Sulayman - exploring songs from the many interpretations of the famous Orpheus story - which reached #5 on the Billboard Classical Chart and #3 on the iTunes Classical chart (2018).

On the heels of its fifth international tour this past summer, which included the Irish National Concert Hall in Dublin and the Aldeburgh Festival, Apollo's Fire launched its 2018/2019 season in Cleveland in October, performing its Magnificent Mozart program to great acclaim.

The Cleveland Plain-Dealer said: "The inspiration for the music may have been ancient, but the performances by Sorrell and Apollo's Fire were as vivid, vital, and true to [Mozart's] spirit as can be." Throughout season, Apollo's Fire will continue its full schedule of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio regional performances with its unique programs of music from throughout music history and across the globe, including O JERUSALEM! Crossroads of Three Faiths in November; Handel's Messiah and Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain: An Irish- Appalachian Celebration in December; Biber's MYSTERY SONATAS in January and February 2019; Three Duels and a Funeral in March 2019; and Bach's B-minor Mass in April 2019.
Later in the season, Apollo's Fire will embark on a four-city tour of its Virtuoso Bach & Vivaldi program, dedicated to the music of J.S. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and their contemporaries, in March 2019. A centerpiece of the program is Sorrell's thrilling arrangement of Vivaldi's "La Folia."

The tour begins on March 26, 2019 at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, followed by performances at the Gubelmann Auditorium in Palm Beach, Florida on March 27, 2019, and the Davis Arts Center in Ft. Myers, Florida on March 28, 2019. The tour concludes on March 30, 2019 in Madison, Wisconsin at the University of Wisconsin's Shannon Hall.

Off the concert hall stage, Apollo's Fire inaugurates its new Artistic Leadership Fellowships program this season, which provides leadership opportunities for young professional Baroque musicians. The program was initiated by Artistic Director Jeannette Sorrell in response to the lack of professional programs where aspiring artistic directors can develop their skills under the guidance of an experienced mentor. The program bridges this gap by preparing future artistic leaders to lead classical music ensembles. The first Artistic Leadership Fellow is Brian Kay, and he will lead select events in the Cleveland area. Apollo's Fire also welcomes Amanda Powell as the first-ever Artist-in-Residence for Outreach Performances, leading select events, workshops and family concerts in and around Cleveland.

As a leading early music artist, Sorrell is a regular guest conductor and harpsichordist across the United States and beyond. In October, she led the Florida Orchestra in a program of Bach, Vivaldi, and Telemann, for which the Tampa Bay Times noted "the concert took historical performance to another level." Later this season, Sorrell will lead the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in Handel's Messiah (December 20-23, 2018), and the San Antonio Symphony in all of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos (February 8-9, 2019), and she appears as harpsichord soloist with the Utah Symphony (February 1-2 2019).

Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain: An Irish-Appalachian Celebration Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, New York December 16, 2019
For more information on this performance, click here. For more information on Apollo's Fire, click here.

Named for the classical god of music and the sun, Apollo's Fire - The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra was founded by its Artistic Director Jeannette Sorrell in 1992 to revive the baroque ideal that music should evoke the various Affekts or passions in the listeners. Apollo's Fire is a collection of creative artists who share Sorrell's passion for drama and rhetoric. As an international touring ensemble, Apollo's Fire has won praise on both sides of the Atlantic for its exhilarating performances of Baroque music on period instruments, as well as creative concept-programs exploring traditional folk music of unique global cultures.

Tours and other highlights in 2018 have included the ensemble's sold-out Carnegie Hall debut, featuring Sorrell's acclaimed A Night at Bach's Coffeehouse program; a U.S. tour of Monteverdi's opera L'Orfeo in a daring new production with a reconstruction of the lost Bacchanale ending; performances at the Caramoor and Ravinia festivals; and the ensemble's debut at the Irish National Concert Hall (Dublin) and the Irish National Opera House (Wexford), as well as return engagements at the Aldeburgh Festival (UK) and the Tuscan Landscapes Festival (Italy). During the 2018-19 season, Apollo's Fire will return to New York for a performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in addition to a spring tour through Florida and Wisconsin.

Previous North American tour engagements include sold-out concerts at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Boston Early Music festivals, the Library of Congress and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; as well as concerts at the Aspen Music Festival and major venues in Toronto, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Houston. The ensemble has performed two major U.S. tours of the Monteverdi Vespers (2010 and 2014); a nine-concert tour of the Brandenburg Concertos in 2013; and a prominent tour of Bach's St John Passion in a dramatic presentation in 2016.

Apollo's Fire's European and U.K. performances have been noted for their "superlative music-making, combining European stylishness with American can-do entrepreneurialism" (The Daily Telegraph, London - "Best 5 Classical Concerts of the Year," 2014). Apollo's Fire made its London debut in 2010 in a sold-out concert at Wigmore Hall including a BBC broadcast. Subsequent European tours have featured sold-out concerts at such venues as the BBC Proms in London (2015 - with live broadcast across Europe); the Aldeburgh Festival (U.K. - 2015 and 2018); Madrid's Teatro Real (Royal Theatre) and Bordeaux's Grand Théàtre de l'Opéra (2011), and major venues in Lisbon, Metz (France), and Bregenz (Austria); as well as concerts on the Birmingham International Series (U.K.) and the Tuscan Landscapes Festival (Italy).

Apollo's Fire has released more than 25 commercial albums and currently records for the British label AVIE. The most recent recording, Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain: An Irish-Appalachian Celebration, is available this fall. Since the ensemble's introduction into the European CD market in 2010, the recordings have won rave reviews in the London press: "a swaggering version, brilliantly played" (The Sunday Times) and "the Midwest's best-kept musical secret is finally reaching British ears" (The Independent). Eight of the ensemble's album releases have become best-sellers on the classical Billboard chart: the Monteverdi Vespers (Billboard Top 10, 2010), Bach's Brandenburg Concertos & Harpsichord Concertos (Billboard Top 10, 2010), a disc of Handel arias with soprano Amanda Forsythe titled The Power of Love (Billboard Classical #3, 2015), and Jeannette Sorrell's four crossover programs: Come to the River - An Early American Gathering (Billboard Classical #9, 2011); Sacrum Mysterium - A Celtic Christmas Vespers (Billboard Classical #11, 2012); Sugarloaf Mountain - An Appalachian Gathering (Billboard Classical #5, 2015); and Sephardic Journey - Wanderings of the Spanish Jews (Billboard World Music Chart #2 and Billboard Classical #5, Feb. 2016); and Songs of Orpheus (Billboard Classical #5, 2018).
ABOUT JEANNETTE SORREL Jeannette Sorrell, founder and Artistic Director of Apollo's Fire, is recognized internationally as one of today's most creative early-music conductors. She has been credited by BBC Music Magazine for forging "a vibrant, life-affirming approach to the re-making of early music."

Sorrell was one of the youngest students ever accepted to the prestigious conducting courses of the Aspen and the Tanglewood music festivals, studying conducting under Leonard Bernstein, Roger Norrington and Robert Spano, and harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam. She won both First Prize and the Audience Choice Award in the 1991 Spivey International Harpsichord Competition, competing against over 70 harpsichordists from Europe, Israel, the U.S., and the Soviet Union.

Sorrell is respected as a leading innovator in creative programming; through this means she has built with Apollo's Fire one of the largest audiences of any baroque orchestra in North America. She has led Apollo's Fire in sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall, the BBC Proms in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., Wigmore Hall in London, the Teatro Real (Royal Theatre) in Madrid, the Grand Théâtre de l'Opéra in Bordeaux, and in festivals around the world, including Aldeburgh, Tanglewood, Aspen, Ravinia and Boston Early Music festivals. In many of these concerts she has performed as harpsichord soloist as well as conductor.

Sorrell and Apollo's Fire have released more than 25 commercial albums, of which eight have been bestsellers on the Billboard Classical chart. Her recordings include the complete Brandenburg Concertos and harpsichord concertos of Bach, praised by The Sunday Times of London as "a swaggering version... brilliantly played by Sorrell." She has also released four albums of Mozart, and hailed as "a near-perfect Mozartian" by Fanfare Record Magazine. Other recordings include Bach's St John Passion, Handel's Messiah, the Monteverdi Vespers. She has been compared to Jordi Savall in her four groundbreaking creative crossover albums, all of which have been bestsellers on Billboard; these explore the early folk and art music of several global cultures.

As a guest conductor, Sorrell is one of the leading baroque specialists in demand with symphony orchestras. During the 2018-19 season, Sorrell makes guest appearances with the Florida Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Utah Symphony. Recent conducting engagements include the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center (Handel's Messiah), the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the New World Symphony, the Utah Symphony, and the Grand Teton Festival. Her 2013 debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as conductor and soloist in the complete Brandenburg Concertos was met with standing ovations every night, and hailed as "an especially joyous occasion" (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review). She has also led the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, the Opera Theatre of St. Louis with the St. Louis Symphony, and the Handel & Haydn Society (Boston), among others, and appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra as a guest keyboard artist. Sorrell has attracted national attention and awards for creative programming. She holds an Artist Diploma from Oberlin Conservatory, an honorary doctorate from Case Western University, two awards from the National Endowment for the Arts for her work on early American music, and an award from the American Musicological Society. Passionate about guiding the next generation of performers, she is the architect of Apollo's Fire's highly successful Young Artist Apprentice Program, which has produced many of the leading young baroque professionals in the country today, as well as Apollo's Fire's new Artistic Leadership Fellowship Program, aimed at developing a new generation of artistic directors in the early music field.
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