The Vivaldi Project, dedicated to presenting truly dramatic performances of 18th Century ensemble music on period instruments. We do this by presenting familiar works in new ways: sharing anecdotes about the composer and the piece, collaborating with other artists including actors and dancers, adding extra performance elements that give the audience a real insight into music they thought they knew.

For example, most audience members had not realized that Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was inspired by a poem that brilliantly depicts the changing of the seasons. In our debut performance of the piece, we performed with a narrator who read the accompanying poem line by line as my musicians and I demonstrated the corresponding musical effect.

The response was overwhelming. Reactions ranged from “The best version of that piece I have ever heard” to “You need to copyright that performance!”

Our future projects will include ‘Vivaldi’s School of Roque,’ spotlighting the composer’s many solo and multi-instrument concerti written for the young female musicians of the "Ospedale della Pietà" where Vivaldi worked as the resident composer. We’ll also be doing ‘Masterpieces of Music and Nature,’ featuring the great sinfonias of C.P.E. Bach, Biber and Corelli. One of my long- range goals would be to increase the size of the group enough to perform Haydn Symphonies.

In addition, the work of the Vivaldi Project will include a large educational component bringing interactive performances into schools and senior and community centers. And a cornerstone of our mission is a commitment to offering performances that are either free to the public or as inexpensive as possible.

Info for Next concert:

June 24, 2008 at 12:00 noon
The Church of the Epiphany
1317 G. Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
202-347-2635
Free to the Public

Music by Corelli, Vivaldi and Scarlatti