07:30 PM
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Event Details
The French Baroque at its most personal, featuring chamber music first composed for the royal family in the palace of Versailles. Our program will feature works for one to three parts written by Jacques Hotteterre, members of the Philidor family, and other musicians working at the court of Louis XIV. Whatever your opinion of the Sun King’s administration of his realm, the music that accompanied his more personal activities is some of the most beautiful of the era, and a true delight to play.
Join Alison Melville, recorder & traverso; Jin Cho, traverso; Jonathan Stuchbery, theorbo; Louise Hung, harpsichord; and Felix Deak, bass viol, as they explore this wonderful soundworld and distinctive music of the early 18th-century.
After starting the recorder in a school classroom in London (UK), Alison Melville’s subsequent career as a player of recorder and historical flutes has taken her across Canada and the USA and to New Zealand, Iceland, Japan and Europe, most recently to Spain. Some highlights: playing on the soundtracks of The Tudors, Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, a Midsummer commercial for IKEA, and for CBC’s The Friendly Giant; solo shows in inner-city London (UK) schools; an improvised music-and-movement duet with an acrobat in northern Finland; and a summer of concerts in prisons across southwestern Ontario. She appears regularly with Tafelmusik, is a past member of Ensemble Polaris and the Toronto Consort, and has played with many other ensembles, companies and festivals. Alison has been heard on CBC/R-C, BBC, RNZ, NPR, Iceland’s RUV, and on over 65 CDs, including several critically acclaimed solo recordings. She taught for many years at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and for other universities, colleges and workshops across North America. www.alisonmelville.com
Cellist and gambist Felix Deák showcases his career as a freelance musician with chamber ensembles and orchestras. He performs and tours regularly with long standing, award winning Montreal-based gamba consort Les Voix Humaines, and Juno award winning ensemble L’harmonie des Saisons.
Felix also spends a lot of time cooking and making memories with his dog Scout.
Flutist Jin Cho specializes in historical and contemporary performance on baroque flute, modern flute and Korean daegeum. Born and raised in South Korea, Jin started learning flute under his father’s influence who was a singer and a music teacher at junior high school. Jin has studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University where he received a Master’s degree and Artist Diploma in modern flute performance. He studied historical performance at the master’s level at the University of Toronto. In between his studies, Jin was a recipient of Rebanks International Fellowship at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Jin is currently based in Toronto, where he performs as a soloist and ensemble musician. Jin has performed with the Toronto Bach Festival, Mississauga Symphony Orchestra, Georgetown Bach Chorale, 21C Festival, L’Orchestre de la Francophonie, Baltimore Baroque Band, Symphony Number One, Bel Cantati Opera, Aspen New Music Ensemble and Lucerne Festival Alumni Ensemble in addition to solo and chamber music performances in South Korea, Canada, United States, Austria, South Africa, India, China, Switzerland, Germany, France and Italy.
Louise Hung’s first introduction to western classical music was hearing a rendition of Für Elise playing through the speakers of garbage trucks in Taiwan as a baby. She has a BMus in Piano Performance at the University of Victoria and her MMus in Piano Performance and Pedagogy program at the University of Toronto. She completed an ACP and MMus in Harpsichord Performance at UofT under the tutelage of Charlotte Nediger. Past engagements include North Wind Concerts, Hammer Baroque, Musicians in Ordinary, Stratford Summer Music Festival, Kingston Road Village concert series, Cor Unum ensemble, Opera Q, Corde del Coure, Theatre of Early Music, and Tafelmusik Winter Institute.
Jonathan Stuchbery is a Toronto-based specialist in instruments of the lute and guitar family. A sought-after performer praised for his “energizing precision” (The Whole Note) and “wistful lute performance” (La Scena Musicale), he has shared the stage across Canada and abroad with ensembles and soloists including Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Arion Orchestre Baroque, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Early Music Alberta, Rosa Barocca, Capella Intima, and Dame Emma Kirkby. As Duo Oriana with soprano Sinéad White, Jonathan has toured throughout Canada, the UK, and Ireland, including features with the English Lute Society (London), at Windsor Castle, and with Early Music America, and released a first CD ‘How Like a Golden Dream’ in 2023 under the Leaf Music label. He is also a member of Toronto based renaissance vocal quintet Diapente. A passionate educator, he has been an instructor at the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, Canadian Renaissance Music Summer School Pacific (Vancouver), Sinfín Armonia (Ecuador) and the Pass Early Music Festival (Lethbridge), in addition to teaching private students at home in Toronto. Jonathan is also interested in composing and collaborating with composers to develop new repertoire for historical instruments. Thanks to a 2024 Toronto Arts Council grant, he has set four newly commissioned poems by Toronto writers to music for Duo Oriana, and he was part of the creation of multiple works for the Cygnus Trio’s 2018 album Amalgam. Jonathan studied early music performance at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya, after earning a Bachelor of Music in Guitar and Lute from McGill’s Schulich School of Music. Off stage catch him walking his pug Satie through Christie Pits or whiling the hours away drinking tea.
Featured Program
Pierre Danican Philidor: Suite en trio 2, for two flutes and b.c. – Le Sieur de Machy: Chaconne for bass viol – Jacques-Martin Hotteterre: Trio 6, for two flutes and b.c. – Robert de Visée: Pieces for theorbo – Pierre Danican Philidor: Suite 5, for traverso & b.c. –François Couperin: Solo works for harpsichord – Anne Danican Philidor: Sonate pour la flûte à bec & b.c.