Submitted by the Salish Sea Early Music Festival

Very special guests Ukrainian Olena Zhukova, coming directly from Kyiv. Canadian viola da gambist Susie Napper, and Canadian player of pardessus de viole Mélisande Corriveau, both coming from Montreal, will join baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan in presenting “France and Italy: Pardessus, Gamba, Flute and Harpsichord” on Saturday, Feb. 14 at 12:30 p.m. at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Friday Harbor. Admission is a suggested donation of $20 to $30 (a free will offering), 18 and under free.

The program, for this most unusual and sonorous ensemble of instruments that would have last been commonplace during the early decades of the 18th century in France, will include music by Louis-Antoine Dornel, Louis and Françoise Couperin, Archangelo Corelli and André Cheron and will demonstrate the the stylistic chasm between the French and Italian styles that was debated so vociferously in France during the early years of the 18th century.

The rarely heard pardessus de viole is the highest-pitched member of the fretted viol family of stringed instruments, corresponding to the violin but played in the lap, alongside the viola da gamba or bass viol, also fretted like a guitar and with a range approximating that of the cello.

The Festival concerts, presented in collaboration with St. David’s Episcopal Church, take place on Saturdays at 12:30 p.m., from January through early July at St. David’s Episcopal Church at 780 Park Street in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. Admission is by a suggested donation (a free will offering) of $20 to $30. Those 18 and under are free. All are welcome regardless of donation. For the full schedule, please see www.salishseafestival.org/sanjuan

Ukrainian harpsichordist Olena Zhukova maintains her role as one of the foremost performers of works for harpsichord from five centuries, with frequent prominent solo, concerto and ensemble appearances with distinguished festivals, ensembles and venues throughout Ukraine and abroad. She holds a PhD and is an Associate Professor at the National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kyiv and founder of the harpsichord class at the Glier Music Institute, having studied with the most prominent harpsichordists of our time, and is a winner of numerous harpsichord prizes and competitions.

Viola da gambists Susie Napper and Mélisande Corriveau as the duo Les Voix Humaines, build on decades of performances worldwide and many prizes and recordings, and bring flair and brilliance and telepathic communion to their virtuoso performances for the last two decades, both playing on historic viols from around 1700 by London luthier, Barak Norman.

Named personality of the year, Prix Opus 2002; Femme de Merite in Montreal in 2011; and Compagnon de l’Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec in 2024, the founder of the Festival Montréal Baroque, Susie Napper is cellist, gambist, and continuo player par excellence, alternatively praised or admonished for her colourful and controversial performances of solo and chamber repertoire of the baroque! Having studied at Juilliard in New York and at the Paris Conservatoire, she teaches in Montreal and Copenhagen and tours around Europe, the Far East and Oceania. With the use of rubato and general freedom of expression, she’s constantly searching for rhetorical meaning and eloquence in bringing the printed page to life!

Mélisande Corriveau “belongs to a new generation of players bringing formidable performing skills and knowledge of period practices…” (Gramophone). She is a core member of Ensemble Masques, Les Voix Humaines, Bande Montréal Baroque, Sonate 1704 and Les Boréades. Her discography numbers over 40 titles on the ATMA Classique and many other important labels. A rare specialist in the pardessus de viole, her recent duo release with harpsichordist Eric Milnes featuring the 18th century French repertoire for the instrument was named among the 10 best classical discs of the year (2016) by CBC Radio, and was selected as Classical CD of the Year by Radio Canada. She is co-founder and Artistic Director of the ensemble L’Harmonie des Saisons. Her pardessus de viole was made by Pierre Le Pilleur, dated 1755.

Flutist Jeffery Cohan, who according to the New York Times, can “play several superstar flutists one might name under the table,” has performed in 25 countries. First Prize winner of the Olga Koussevitzky Young Artist Competition in New York and recipient of grants from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music and the French Government, he has received international acclaim both as a modern flutist and as one of the foremost specialists on transverse flutes from the Renaissance through the early 19th century. He is the only musician to have been awarded both the highest prize in the Concours Musica Antiqua in Bruges, Belgium (together with lutenist Stephen Stubbs), and the Erwin Bodky Award in Boston – two of the most prestigious prizes for performers on period instruments.

To learn more, visit www.salishseafestival.org/sanjuan.

Olena Zhukova