Gathering Note

Tag: Baroque

  • In the company of devils

    Jason Moy began Ars Musica Chicago’s Friday-night recital, “Angels and Demons,” with a warning – of sorts. Baroque Italian musical life, he noted, was full of characters: schemers, libertines, religious zealots, assassins and virtuosi with sharp elbows. The remarks set the tone for a surprisingly lively evening of music from an era that can seem…

  • Handel’s triumphal and somber sides shine at festival close

    Handel’s triumphal and somber sides shine at festival close

    George Frederic Handel’s career was interwoven tightly with the British monarchy, a relationship that spanned the exuberant heights of national peace and the somber depths of royal loss. In an afternoon of starkly contrasting emotional colors, the final performance of the 2026 Handel Week Festival Orchestra and Chorus gathered musicians from across the Chicago area…

  • Handel Week Festival opens in Oak Park with concerti and a Roman rarity

    Handel Week Festival opens in Oak Park with concerti and a Roman rarity

    Each February for the past 27 years, Dennis Northway has convened musicians to perform the work of George Frideric Handel in Oak Park. Not the Messiah that appears with metronomic regularity each Christmas, nor even the Water Music or Royal Fireworks that surface on classical radio, but the unfamiliar catalog that gradually receded from public…

  • Experience Handel’s Water Music on the Chicago River

    Experience Handel’s Water Music on the Chicago River

    After last year’s debut, Music of the Baroque is bringing back The Chicago Water Music to the Chicago River on Wednesday, September 10th. Dame Jane Glover will once again lead the ensemble from aboard the “Bright Star” as it travels from Ogden Slip to Merchandise Mart, but this year comes with an ambitious new twist:…

  • Music of the Baroque’s Theodora is free to view for a limited time

    In the lead up to Music of the Baroque’s emerald anniversary season, they are making last season’s performances free to view for a limited time. This week, Handel’s Theodora is on offer. Handel’s Theodora isn’t one of his most frequently performed works, but those who know it tend to hold it close. Premiered in 1750…

  • Minkowski Takes Leap from Baroque to Classical with Jupiter and Les Boréades

    Originally published on Seen and Heard International Gods and mythology long influenced music, especially during the Baroque and Classical periods. This era saw a cultural shift, drawing greater and greater inspiration from pre-Christian societies. The larger-than-life characters of mythology offered spectacle and theatricality, especially for Baroque opera. They provided dramatic material for the genre, fueling…