Boston Baroque Celebrates 50th Anniversary Season

Boston Baroque will celebrate its 50th Anniversary Season with both concerts and events at NEC's Jordan Hall, GBH's Calderwood Studio, and on the global streaming platform IDAGIO. The season, led by founding Music Director Martin Pearlman, includes a return to Handel's Messiah and Bach's masterpiece, the B minor Mass, Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony, and a much-anticipated new production of Gluck's opera Iphigénie en Tauride starring soprano Wendy Bryn Harmer and tenor William Burden.

"There is so much to celebrate in this anniversary season," said founding Music Director Martin Pearlman. "When I founded Boston Baroque 50 seasons ago, it was the first period-instrument orchestra in North America, and so it was quite an experiment. Everything that has come since then-being the first period-instrument orchestra to perform in Carnegie Hall, being nominated for 6 GRAMMY Awards for our recordings, and now streaming our concerts to five continents-has been the wonderful and unexpected outcome of a simple desire to make music in a free and authentic way."

Boston Baroque's 50th Anniversary Season marks a momentous milestone for North America's first permanent Baroque orchestra. Boston Baroque was the first period instrument orchestra to get a major record deal, producing 26 commercial recordings over the last 50 years. The organization was the first period instrument orchestra to perform at Los Angeles' Disney Hall, San Juan's Casals Festival, and numerous festivals in the United States and abroad. Boston Baroque has given numerous American period-instrument premieres including Mozart's The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni, and Boston's first complete cycle of Monteverdi's three surviving operas.

"Boston Baroque played a key role in founding the early music movement in North America," Early Music America Executive Director David McCormick said, "and continues to be a leader in the field today. Countless musicians and music-lovers were introduced to period practice through Boston Baroque recordings-some went on to found or lead other ensembles and early music programs. Boston Baroque's impact is felt not only in Boston, but also in concert halls and classrooms across the country and around the world."

Boston Baroque's five-concert season will be presented in-person at GBH's Calderwood Studio, New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall, and Harvard University's Sanders Theatre, and will stream online to a worldwide audience on IDAGIO's Global Concert Hall. Subscriptions are now on sale for the 2022-2023 Season, and single tickets will go on sale later this summer.

"This organization has grown in ways that were unimaginable two years ago," said Executive Director Jennifer Ritvo Hughes. "Boston Baroque will celebrate our milestone anniversary season in three musical homes that serve our varied and dynamic audiences-the iconic Jordan Hall, the immersive GBH studios, and the global concert hall on IDAGIO."

The concert season opens October 15-16 with Bach's B Minor Mass featuring soloist sopranos Amanda Forsythe and Sonja Tengblad, mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford in her Boston Baroque debut, tenor Nicholas Phan, and bass-baritone Kevin Deas. The October 15 performance will be held at GBH's Calderwood Studio and streamed live on IDAGIO; the October 16 performance will be held at NEC's Jordan Hall.

Boston Baroque returns to its December holiday traditions of presenting Handel's Messiah and a New Year's Celebration Concert. Messiah will feature the return of soprano Susanna Phillips, mezzo-soprano Ann McMahon Quintero and tenor Richard Croft to Boston Baroque; baritone Sidney Outlaw makes his company debut. Performances of Handel's Messiah run December 3 at GBH's Calderwood Studio, and December 4 at NEC's Jordan Hall, with the Saturday performance streamed live on IDAGIO.

The New Year's Celebration program will feature Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, and will be held at GBH's Calderwood Studio on New Year's Eve, where it will simultaneously stream live on IDAGIO, and return to Sanders Theatre on New Year's Day.

In March, Boston Baroque performs an all-orchestral program featuring Mozart's Symphony No. 41, "Jupiter," and his Sinfonia concertante, featuring GRAMMY-nominated concertmaster Christina Day Martinson and principal violist Jason Fisher. The performances run March 25 at GBH's Calderwood Studio and Sunday, March 26 at NEC's Jordan Hall.

The season concludes with a new production of Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride April 20-23, at GBH's Calderwood Studio. The opera comes to life in the hands of conductor Martin Pearlman and an outstanding cast, including Metropolitan Opera stars Wendy Bryn Harmer in her role debut as Iphigénie, William Burden as Pylade, and Boston favorite's Jesse Blumberg as Oreste and David McFerrin as Thoas. The April 21 performance will be streamed live on IDAGIO.

All streaming performances will be available to watch on-demand on IDAGIO for 30 days after their debuts.

Boston Baroque will also continue to offer a season-long roster of virtual programming with leaders in the baroque and classical music fields, including renewing its partnership with the Lobkowicz Collections, one of Europe's oldest and finest private collections of musical archives.

Subscriptions are now on sale for the 2022-2023 Season, and begin at $200 for an all-virtual package, with options to add in-person tickets this summer in advance of single ticket sales. Both in-person and virtual single tickets will become available at a later date. In-person single tickets range from $25-$175, and livestream tickets begin at $9. Subscriptions can be purchased on Boston Baroque's website at baroque.boston or by calling (617) 987-8600.

The six-time GRAMMY-nominated Boston Baroque is the first permanent Baroque orchestra established in North America and, according to Fanfare Magazine, is widely regarded as "one of the world's premier period instrument bands." The ensemble produces lively, emotionally charged, groundbreaking performances of Baroque and Classical works for today's audiences performed on instruments and using performance techniques that reflect the eras in which the music was composed.

Boston Baroque has expanded its reach globally through its partnership with IDAGIO, the world's leading classical music streaming service. Its 2021-2022 Season was the first full season by a Baroque orchestra to stream on the platform, and brought together virtual audiences from across five continents (North America, South America, Asia, Europe, and Australia) and over 17 countries.

Founded in 1973 as "Banchetto Musicale" by Music Director Martin Pearlman, Boston Baroque's orchestra is composed of some of the finest period instrument players in the United States, and is frequently joined by the ensemble's professional chorus and by world-class instrumental and vocal soloists from around the globe. The ensemble has performed at major music centers across the United States and performed recently in Poland for the 2015 Beethoven Festival, with sold-out performances of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 in Warsaw and Handel's Messiah in Katowice.

Boston Baroque reaches an international audience with its twenty-six acclaimed recordings. In 2012, the ensemble became the first American orchestra to record with the highly-regarded UK audiophile label Linn Records, and its release of The Creation received great critical acclaim. In April 2014, the orchestra recorded Monteverdi's rarely performed opera, Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, which was released on Linn Records and received two nominations at the 2016 GRAMMY Awards.

Boston Baroque's recordings have received six GRAMMY Award Nominations: its 1992 release of Handel's Messiah, 1998 release of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, 2000 release of Bach's Mass in B Minor, 2015 release of Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, and 2018 release of Biber's The Mystery Sonatas.

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