Grammy-Winning Apollo's Fire Returns To Chicago Area March 12

2019 GRAMMY Award Winners Apollo's Fire and Jeannette Sorrell will return to the Chicago area to present their celebrated O Jerusalem! Crossroads of Three Faiths program at Northwestern University on March 12, 2020. The week before, Apollo's Fire and Sorrell will once again return to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the first time since December 2018, also performing O Jerusalem! Crossroads of Three Faiths on March 7, 2020 as part of MetLiveArts.

Conceived as a sequel to Sephardic Journey, which the Chicago Tribune called "an absorbing collection of early music, beautifully performed" and named one of its Best 10 Classical Albums of the Year," O Jerusalem! Crossroads of Three Faiths welcomes Apollo's Fire back to Chicago. Apollo's Fire made its long-awaited Chicago debut opening the University of Chicago Presents series at Mandel Hall in October 2016, followed by sold-out concerts at the Ravinia Festival in 2017 and a return in 2018. Apollo's Fire will return to the Ravinia Festival on July 7, 2020 with a performance of J.S. Bach's complete Brandenburg Concertos.

The March 12 performance at Northwestern University marks the launch of a new semi-annual residency by Apollo's Fire in the Chicago area. Apollo's Fire plans to play in the area twice a year, through a combination of partnerships with Chicago-based institutions. More information will be announced about Chicago-area concerts in November 2020 and March 2021.

Jeannette Sorrell, Founder and Artistic Director of Apollo's Fire, explained that such a residency has been a strategic goal of Apollo's Fire ever since the 2016 debut. "At the end of our Chicago debut concert at the University of Chicago, we were mobbed by enthusiastic patrons who told us they had been waiting for years to hear the group live, and that we must return twice a year. So we spent a couple of years figuring out how to make that work," Sorrell said. "We discussed it with Chicago-based colleagues such as Karen Fishman (former Executive Director of Music of the Baroque, now retired). We wanted to do this in a way that can be beneficial to all of our early music colleagues in Chicago, including Newberry, Haymarket, and Music of the Baroque. We picked a month when none of these groups are performing, in order to launch this residency in a collegial way. Our goal is to build audiences for early music - as we have done in Cleveland - and to do so for the benefit all early music ensembles."

Created and conducted by Jeannette Sorrell, O Jerusalem! Crossroads of Three Faiths takes the listener on a tour of the four quarters of Old Jerusalem-Jewish, Christian, Arab, and Armenian/Byzantine-exploring the rich cross-cultural influences and shared humanity of the region through music. The program includes selections from Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, as well as traditional songs, performed by 25 unique artists from Jewish, Palestinian, Muslim, and Christian backgrounds, on traditional and period instruments including the oud, theorbo, medieval harp, qanoon, percussion, and more. The program premiered in Cleveland in 2018 with five sold-out performances.

Jeannette Sorrell said: "It was a joy to create and mold this program last year in Cleveland. At a time of rising tensions in the Middle East, my 25 friends and I are delighted to offer a different lens through which to view this troubled region. The period from 1300 to 1600, from which our music is drawn, was a time of relative peace in Jerusalem, when the Old City residents celebrated their diversity. We are excited to bring this program to two such diverse cities as New York and Chicago."

On March 12, 2020, Apollo's Fire will perform O Jerusalem! Crossroads of Three Faiths for its first appearances at Northwestern University's Galvin Recital Hall.

On March 7, 2020, Apollo's Fire will return for the fifth time since 2013 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, presented by MetLive Arts, for the New York premiere of O Jerusalem! Crossroads of Faith. Several of the ensemble's previous concerts, including December 2018's Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain: An Irish-Appalachian Celebration, were completely all sold-out.

For more information on Apollo's Fire, click here.

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