Submitted by the Salish Sea Early Music Festival
World-renowned early-music specialists viola da gambist Susie Napper from Montreal and harpsichordist Elisabeth Wright from Bloomington, Indiana, will join baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan in Baroque Trio JEST, presented by the Salish Sea Early Music Festival in a program of music by French baroque composers François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau and Marin Marais, among others on Sunday, May 12, at 2 p.m. at Brickworks. JEST marks its 40th year of performances together in 2019.
Napper grew up in London and studied at the Juilliard School in New York and the Paris Conservatoire. She co-founded and directed the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, has been principal cellist with Stradivaria in France, both the Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal and Les Boréades in Montreal and the Trinity Consort of Portland. As a member of Les Voix Humaines, she has recorded most of the known repertoire for two viols, which can be heard on Harmonia Mundi, EMI, Erato, ADDA, CBC Records, Naxos and ATMA record labels. Napper teaches at McGill University and at the Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, and founded the international Festival Montréal Baroque, presented in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in June since 2001. She was awarded the Prix Opus in 2002 for “Personality of the year” by the Conseil québécois de la musique.
Harpsichordist and fortepianist Wright has appeared as soloist with Tafelmusik, Lyra, Seattle, Portland and Indianapolis baroque orchestras. Professor at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Wright is in frequent demand for master classes and seminars and is noted for her expertise in the art of basso continuo improvisation. Following graduate studies with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam, she has maintained a distinguished career performing for many of the major early-music festivals in North America, South America and Europe. A member of Duo Geminiani with violinist Stanley Ritchie, she has performed and recorded with Música Ficta, and with many artists of international renown. Wright has been a reviewer for “Early Keyboard Journal,” was a founding member of The Seattle Early Music Guild and Bloomington Early Music, and has served on the board of Early Music America and as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, PEW and PennPat. She has been broadcast on four continents and has recorded for Classic Masters, Milan-Jade, Focus, Arion, Arts Music, Centaur and Música Ficta Recordings.
Flutist Cohan is the artistic director of the Salish Sea Early Music Festival, has won the most prestigious awards for performers of early music on period instruments in Boston and Bruges, Belgium, and has performed in 25 countries.
For more information, visit salishseafestival.org/sanjuan. Admission is by suggested donation of $15, $20 or $25; ages 18 and under are free
