A Baroque Salon: Music of 18th Century Paris

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The Bruce Porter Memorial Music Series presents A Baroque Salon: Music of 18th-Century Paris.

Les Amies de Théodore specializes in music of the 17th and 18th centuries. Susan Allen, flute; Deborah Robin, recorder; Laura Mazza-Dixon, viola da gamba and Anne Mayo, harpsichord, will be joined by guest violinist, Emlyn Ngai.

The music performed at A Baroque Salon on Sunday, April 28 at 4 p.m., will include the Trio Sonata in C major by Johann Joachim Quantz, the Premier Concert Royale and Les Barricades Mystérieuses by François Couperin, Suite V from Jean- Philippe Rameau’s Pièces de Clavecin en Concert, and Suite VI from Georg Philipp Telemann’s Paris Quartets.

Imagine you have been invited to a concert in Paris performed by virtuoso musicians employed by the extravagant French king, Louis XIV. Savor the beauty and passion of the music of the High Baroque Walter Mayo’s commentary on the musical culture of Paris in the early 1700s and the lives of the composers who lived and worked there.

The Baroque ensemble Les Amies de Théodore performs regularly for the Musical Club of Hartford, and has presented concerts for the Music at First Church Series in Windsor, the Sawyer Memorial Church in Jonesport, Maine, Seabury Life Community in Bloomfield, Conn. and the Lathrop Community in Northampton, Mass.

Susan Allen, flautist, was born into a family of musicians and music teachers and attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She holds an RN from Greater Hartford Community College and has practiced as a psychiatric nurse.

Laura Mazza-Dixon teaches classical guitar and viola da gamba at the Windy Hill Studio in Granby. She has directed early music ensembles at the Hartt School. Founder and director of both the Granby Family Dance Series and the contra-dance band Heart’s Ease, She currently co-directs the Bruce Porter Memorial Music Series.

In the 1970s, Anne Mayo and her husband, Walter, constructed a harpsichord from a Zuckermann kit, igniting a decades-long study of solo and chamber repertoire for that instrument. She has transcribed much of the music of French composer Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre into modern notation.

Walter Mayo is a retired attorney and a lover of all music genres. He is a frequent presenter of music-related programs for ALP, including: Bach and Beyond, The Beatles, Wagner’s “Ring Cycle,” Richard Strauss, Country Music and Operatic Femmes Fatales.

Emlyn Ngai teaches modern and historical violin at the Hartt School of Music. He has appeared on the Bruce Porter Memorial Music Series many times as the director of the Hartt Collegium Musicum, the student Baroque orchestra.

As a young musician, Deborah Robin performed as recorder soloist in the Providence Recorder Society’s ensemble under the direction of her teacher, Ilse Schaler. She has performed with the early music orchestra Aston Magna under the direction of Albert Fuller, with viola da gamba player Grace Feldman, and at the Center for Old Music in the New World, in Lexington, Ky.

The Bruce Porter Memorial Music Series is in its seventh season of sponsoring concerts of classical music and silent films with live organ accompaniment at South Congregational Church in Granby. Parking is behind the church with wheelchair access from the side entrance. The concerts are free to the public, with a suggested donation of $10 to support the series. A reception with the performers follows each concert. For more information please contact the South Church office at 860-653-7289 or visit the website at southchurchgranby.org/connect/music/bruce-porter-memorial-music-series