Apollo's Fire And Jeannette Sorrell Announce Florida/Wisconsin March 2019 Tour

This month, GRAMMY Award winners Apollo's Fire and Artistic Director Jeannette Sorrell will embark on a tour of Florida and Wisconsin with their acclaimed program Virtuoso Bach & Vivaldi, March 26-30, 2019. The tour comes on the heels of the ensemble's first GRAMMY Award for Songs of Orpheus.

The Spring 2019 tour of Virtuoso Bach & Vivaldi begins on March 26 at University of Florida Performing Arts in Gainesville, Florida and continues with concerts at Society for Four Arts in Palm Beach, Florida on March 27 and at the Davis Arts Center in Ft. Myers, Florida on March 28. The tour concludes with the ensemble's return to the University of Wisconsin's Shannon Hall in Madison, Wisconsin on March 30. Created by Jeannette Sorrell, founder and Artistic Director of Apollo's Fire, Virtuoso Bach & Vivaldi is one of the ensemble's most beloved and well-received programs, pairing technically challenging and stunning works by J.S. Bach and Antonio Vivaldi, including Sorrell's celebrated arrangement of Vivaldi's "La Folia." The Financial Times, reviewing Apollo's Fire 2015 debut at the BBC Proms, wrote: "Their program flickered and danced, distinguished by cultivated string tone and buoyancy of rhythm."

Last month, Apollo's Fire and Jeannette Sorrell received their first GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album for their 26th recording, Songs of Orpheus, with tenor Karim Sulayman. The album also marked the ensemble's first GRAMMY nomination. The GRAMMY win came four months after Apollo's Fire released its 27th album, Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain, a celebration of the Celtic influence on traditional Appalachian Christmas music, in October 2018. The program was the latest of the many innovative and wide-ranging Early Music programs designed expressly for Apollo's Fire by Jeannette Sorrell. On December 16, 2018, Sorrell led the ensemble in a sold-out performance of Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain: An Irish-Appalachian Celebration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

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

For more information on Jeannette Sorrell, click here.

For more information on Songs of Orpheus, click here.

Apollo's Fire Spring 2019 Tour

Virtuoso Bach & Vivaldi

UCCELLINI (arr. Sorrell) La Bergmasca

VIVALDI Concerto in B Minor for Four Violins

J.S. BACH Selections from Orchestral Suite no. 2 in B Minor

VIVALDI Concerto in G Minor for Two Cellos

J.S. BACH Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048

VIVALDI Flute Concerto in D, RV 428, "Il Gardellino"

VIVALDI (arr. Sorrell) "La Folia" after Trio Sonata in D Minor, RV 63

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

University of Florida Performing Arts

Gainesville, Florida

For tickets and information, click here.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Society for Four Arts - Gubelmann Auditorium

Palm Beach, Florida

For tickets and information, click here.

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Davis Arts Center

Ft. Myers, Florida

For more information, click here.

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Shannon Hall, University of Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin

For more information, click here.

ABOUT APOLLO'S FIRE
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 the 2018/2019 season include the ensemble's return to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to present its critically acclaimed Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain: An Irish-Appalachian Celebration in December 2018. In March 2019, the ensemble embarks on a four-city tour of the United States with Virtuoso Bach & Vivaldi, performing concerts in Florida and Wisconsin.

Apollo's Fire made its sold-out Carnegie Hall debut, featuring Sorrell's acclaimed A Night at Bach's Coffeehouse program in March 2018. Further performances in 2018 included 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).

Previous North American tour engagements have included 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 27 commercial albums and currently records for the British label AVIE. Apollo's Fire received its first Grammy Award for Songs of Orpheus, which won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. The ensemble's most recent recording, Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain: An Irish-Appalachian Celebration, was released in October 2018, and was called the "festive disc of the year" by Gramophone. Since their introduction into the European CD market in 2010, Apollo's Fire's 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 (2019 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album; Billboard Classical #5, 2018; 2019).

About Jeannette Sorrell, Artistic Director

GRAMMY-winning conductor and harpsichordist Jeannette Sorrell is recognized internationally as one of today's most compelling interpreters of Baroque and Classical repertoire.

She is the founder and artistic director of Apollo's Fire, and has led the renowned period ensemble in sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall, London's BBC Proms, Madrid's Royal Theatre, the Tanglewood and Ravinia festivals, Boston's Early Music Festival, the Library of Congress, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), among others. She and her ensemble have built one of the largest audiences of any baroque orchestra in North America. Sorrell and Apollo's Fire have released 26 commercial CDs, including 8 bestsellers on the Billboard classical chart and a 2018 GRAMMY-winner. Her recordings include the complete Brandenburg Concerti and harpsichord concerti of Bach; Bach's St John Passion; Handel's Messiah; and the Monteverdi Vespers, among others.

In demand with symphony orchestras and period groups alike, Sorrell has repeatedly conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony, St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Utah Symphony, and New World Symphony, and has also led the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Opera St Louis with the St Louis Symphony, the Florida Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, and Handel & Haydn Society, among others.

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

Sorrell has attracted national attention and awards for her creative programming, which has brought many new listeners to early music through the use of contextual and dramatic elements. She received an honorary doctorate from Case Western University 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 nation's leading young professional baroque players.

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