Burning River Baroque to perform at Stone Oven on March 23

Burning River Baroque, a nonprofit early-music group, will return to Cleveland Heights on Thursday, March 23, with “On the Brink of Insanity: Portrayals of Women as Mad, Crazy, and Unhinged.” The program will be performed at 6:30 p.m., at the Stone Oven, 2267 Lee Road; free-will donations will be gratefully accepted.

Dramatic musical works often contain scenes of overwhelming emotion in which male characters are portrayed as being consumed by power. When women are overcome with emotion, however, male composers often attribute madness or craziness to them.

In this program, Burning River Baroque will present a selection of works by George Frideric Handel, John Eccles, and Henry Purcell in which women’s passions and emotional expressions render them unhinged in the eyes of their creators. A set of Sephardic folk songs will depict ways in which female narrators describe various types of insanity.

In a new move for the ensemble, the program will also feature an original work using texts from the Salem witch trial of Bridget Bishop. This fusion of new and old will shed light on how the ways we describe those who are different from us can have real and long-lasting effects on the community at large.

Performers include Malina Rauschenfels, soprano and baroque violin; Paula Maust, harpsichord; and Anna Steinhoff, baroque cello. For more information, visit www.burning-river-baroque.org.