Consoli/True-Frost Star in A MUSICAL SALON w/ Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra

Handel and Haydn Society principal bassist Robert Nairn leads an intimate program of music and poetry set in a 19th-century English salon, featuring soprano Susan Consoli and actor Jim True-Frost, in collaboration with the Huntington Theatre Company on March 19th at 8:00pm and March 21st at 3:00pm. The program is directed by Peter DuBois.

Nairn's aim for the program is to recreate a salon evening circa 1824 when famed bass player Domenico Dragonetti was feted in London. Sir George Smart, the leading English conductor at the time, wrote in his journal, "On July 21st, 1824, I dined in the city at Mr. Salomons' to meet Rossini, who made himself most agreeable. He had been paid by Salomons fifty pounds to compose a duet to be played by Salomons and Dragonetti, the great double-bass player."
Poetry also played its part in salon culture. Byron died that same year, Keats and Shelley had passed a few years earlier and all of them wrote short poems on music. Reciting such poems and combining them with intimate musical performances allows the audience to experience a unique part of history - artistic and musical gatherings in patrons' drawing rooms. On-stage seating and period-influenced sets help to design the salon atmosphere.

"The Handel and Haydn Society comprises an extraordinarily talented group of artists," said Artistic Director Harry Christophers. "Rob Nairn has designed a unique and historically-inspired program, and I'm proud that we can present Rob and his colleagues in what promises to be a most engaging concert experience."

A native of Australia, Robert Nairn received his Bachelor of music with Distinction from the Canberra School of Music and a post-graduate diploma from the Berlin Musikhochschule by courtesy of a two-year DAAD German Government Scholarship.

Nairn's experience covers contemporary, jazz, traditional orchestral, and Baroque and Classical "authentic performance" Ensembles. He has performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, and the Melbourne Symphony. He has acted as guest Principal Bassist with the Halle Orchestra, the London Mozart players, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and held the position of principal bass with the Australian Chamber orchestra and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

He holds the position of principal double bass with the Handel and Haydn Society and has also performed with the English Baroque soloists, the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, Washington Bach Consort, the Aulos Ensemble, Rebel, Florilegium and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Nairn is active in commissioning new works for the double bass and has premiered more than 30 compositions for both solo bass and chamber music featuring the bass.

Nairn is on the faculty at the Juilliard School and Penn State University where he also directs the University's Baroque Ensemble. He is also president-elect of the International Society of Bassists. He has recorded for Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, EMI, Virgin, ABC Classics, and Channel Classics.

Soprano Susan Consoli's active career in oratorio, opera and recital has led her throughout the United States and abroad. She has worked under such notable conductors as Craig Smith, John Harbison, Bruno Weil, Grant Llewellyn, Laurence Cummings, John Finney, William Jon Gray, Tom Hall, and Ryan Turner as well as director/choreographer Chen Shi-Zheng and choreographer Tero Saarinen. She has been a soloist in Emmanuel Music's Bach Cantata Series since 2005 as well as soloist with the Carmel Bach Festival since 2004.

Last season's solo engagements included the role of Vera Mater in Charpentier's Judicium Salomonis with Ensemble Abendmusik, Bach Magnificat and Purcell The Masque from Dioclesian with the Handel and Haydn Society, Handel Salve Regina at Harvard University's Busch Hall with James David Christie, Handel Dixit Dominus and Jonathan Dove Koethener Messe with Chorus Pro Musica, Haydn Lord Nelson Mass and Handel Dettigen Te Deum with the Concord Chorale, and Bach BWV 14, 21, 23, 99 with Emmanuel Music. Additionally, she premiered John Harbison's A Clear Midnight last spring. Consoli can be heard on the Handel and Haydn Society recording of All is Bright for Avie Records. She is a member of the voice faculty at both Phillips Exeter Academy and Phillips Academy of Andover.

Jim True-Frost played "Prez" on the acclaimed HBO series The Wire. As a New York-based actor he has made guest appearances on many other television series, including Fringe, the three Law and Order shows, CSI: Miami, Homicide, Early Edition, and Medium. His feature film appearances include Off the Map, Singles, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Affliction. His theatre appearances on Broadway include August: Osage County, Buried Child, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Rivals at Lincoln Center. He has been a member of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company for twenty years, and has appeared in, or directed, 15 productions there. Since moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts he has appeared locally in the American Repertory Theatre's productions of Julius Caesar and Romance and has joined the faculty of the Harvard/ART graduate acting program, where he teaches Acting on Film and Yoga for Actors.

The Handel and Haydn Society is a professional chorus and period instrument orchestra that is internationally recognized as a leader in the field of Historically Informed Performance, a revelatory style that uses the instruments and techniques of the time in which the music was composed. Founded in Boston in 1815, the Society is the oldest continuously performing arts organization in the United States and has a longstanding commitment to excellence and innovation: it gave the American premieres of Handel's Messiah (1818), Haydn's The Creation (1819), Verdi's Requiem (1878) and Bach's St. Matthew Passion (1889). The Society today, under the leadership of Artistic Director Harry Christophers, is committed to its mission "to perform Baroque and Classical music at the highest levels of artistic excellence and to share that music with as large and diverse an audience as possible." The Society is widely known through its local subscription concerts, tours, concert broadcasts on National Public Radio, and recordings. The Society's Lamentations and Praises won a 2002 Grammy Award, and its two most recent CDs, All is Bright and Peace, appeared simultaneously in the top ten on Billboard Magazine's classical music chart. Since 1985, the Society's award-winning Karen S. & George D. Levy Educational Outreach Program has fostered the knowledge and performance of classical music among young people including in underserved schools and communities. This school year alone, the program will bring music education and vocal training to more than 10,000 students in the Greater Boston area.

For more information, visit www.handelandhaydn.org.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride

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