Baroque Spring ~ Final concerts of the season

With spring fully established, what better music to capture the season’s happy mood than the energetic and enchanting music of the late Baroque period (about 1700 to 1750). Under the vibrant direction of Artistic Director & Conductor Valentin Radu, the Camerata Ama Deus Baroque period-instrument chamber orchestra will offer two performances of effervescent works by three masterful Baroque composers—Johann Sebastian Bach, Benedetto Marcello and Georg Philipp Telemann.

From the musical genius of Bach, Maestro Radu and the Camerata Ama Deus will perform the Concerto for Two Violins in d minor, a triple Concerto for Flute, Violin and Harpsichord in a minor and the famed Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. From Italy comes the well-known Oboe Concerto in d minor by Marcello. And returning to Germany, the artists of the Camerata Ama Deus will perform two stunning works by Telemann—his Concerto for Recorder in g minor and the virtuosic Suite for Trumpet in D. This program will be offered twice in different neighborhoods of the Delaware Valley. 

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On Friday, May 31 at 8:00 PM, the concert will be presented at the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin’s Lane (at Willow Grove Avenue) in Chestnut Hill. Then on Sunday, June 2 at 6:00 PM, the concert will be repeated in Daylesford Abbey, 220 South Valley Road in Paoli. Tickets for both concerts are priced at $25 for general admission, $20 for seniors and $10 for students & children. Doors open 45 minutes before the concert. 

Our CDs will be available at the concert, including our latest release: Gershwin & Ellington (see details below). 

Season 27 Announced! Click on the picture to enlarge.

Gershwin & Ellington CD released!

2 CD SET
Satin Doll - “Duke” Ellington
“I Got Rhythm” Variations - George Gershwin
Concerto in F - Gershwin
Second Rhapsody for Orchestra with Piano - Gershwin
New World A-Comin’ - Ellington
Rhapsody in Blue - Gershwin
Recorded live, Friday, January 4, 2013, in the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Phila. PA.

Click to purchase your copy today!

We are thrilled to announce the release of the recording of our January concert, "Gershwin & Ellington," featuring Peter Donohoe with the Ama Deus Ensemble, conducted by Music Director, Valentin Radu. For those who attended this exhilarating concert, the memory of an exciting evening of music is fresh in their memories. Buying one of these CD sets, you can feel as if you are there in the Perelman Theater. The electricity is evident from the first note!

May 2013 Newsletter: Beethoven & Paganini at the Kimmel Center

Niccolò Paganini

Violin Concerto No. 1

The Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 6, was composed by Paganini in Italy, probably between 1817 and 1818. The concerto reveals that Paganini’s technical wizardry was fully developed. Contemporary audiences gasped at the extended passages of double-stop thirds, both chromatic and in harmonics.

Paganini intended the Concerto to be heard in E-flat major: the orchestral parts were written in E-flat, and the solo part was written in D major with instructions for the violin to be tuned a semitone high (a technique known as scordatura), so that it would therefore sound in E-flat. This enables the soloist to achieve effects in E-flat which would not be possible with a normal D tuning (for example, the opening of the third movement, where the violin plays a rapid downward scale A-G-F♯-E-D, both bowed and pizzicato. This is possible on an open D-string, but is not possible in the key of E-flat), because two strings would be required. The key of E flat would mute the sound of the orchestra, whose strings would play fewer tones on open strings, and this would make the solo part emerge more clearly from the orchestral accompaniment.