Baroque family drama heats up musical stage
"Generation gap!" The term became popular as recently as the 1960s. It describes the cultural differences between insufferably dull, judgmental parents and their hip, enlightened and often eye-rolling offspring. Yet generational schisms have always existed within families and are fascinating things to watch - from the outside, at least.
Incidentally, “HIP” is also an acronym for “historically informed performance,” and describes part of the mission of Apollo’s Fire, the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, which further pledges “to engage widespread audiences in its joyous pursuit of artistic excellence.”
Apollo’s Fire was founded in Cleveland Heights in 1992 by Jeannette Sorrell, sometime after she was told by a conducting teacher that she might as well look into another field, because orchestras would never accept a woman conductor. “That kind of attitude came as a big surprise to me," Sorrell says, "because I grew up with parents who let me think I could do whatever I wanted to do.”
No generation gap there, at any rate. Sorrell’s thriving ensemble unites a select group of early music specialists from throughout North America and Europe who play on authentic period instruments. It has been praised locally and internationally for stylistic freshness and buoyancy, technical excellence, and for the creativity of Sorrell's programming.
In her next series of concerts with Apollo’s Fire, called “Bach Family Fireworks,” Sorrell has chosen to highlight the well-documented generation gap that fired up dinnertime conversations chez Bach. With 20 children, many trained as musicians by their illustrious parents, conflicts over musical taste must indeed have been noisy affairs. Yet each Bach was endowed with the marvelous family talent along with his or her own distinctive artistic voice.
Veteran actor George Roth, fresh from a one-man triumph as Yogi Berra at Actors’ Summit in Hudson, will step back in time three centuries, don a powdered wig, like the one for which J.S. Bach’s sons teased their papa, and join Sorrell and Apollo’s Fire as they perform virtuoso concertos by J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach and J.C.F. Bach. The string players will bring their electricity to symphonies of the fiery Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach and the quirky youngest surviving son Wilhelm Friedeman Bach, and to concertos of the exuberant Papa Bach himself. Soloists for the performance are violinist Julie Andrijeski, cellist Rene Schiffer and harpsichordist Jeannette Sorrell.
These concerts will take place at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 4, at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Akron; 8 p.m., Friday, Feb. 5, at Fairmount Presbyterian Church, Cleveland Heights; 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 6, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland Heights; Sunday, Feb. 7, at Rocky River Presbyterian Church; and Tuesday, Feb. 9, at St. Noel’s Catholic Church, Willoughby. Preconcert lectures take place one hour before each performance.
Tickets are $20-$60. Free student tickets are available in Akron and Willoughby and special discounts are available for seniors and under-30s. Call 216-320-0012 or visit www.apollosfire.org.
Margi Griebling-Haigh is a freelance composer, oboist, and artist residing in Cleveland Heights.