Wind Soloists Breathe Authenticity into Mozart, Stadler

Media Contact:

Kristen Gleason
Director of Marketing
The Paramount Theater
215 East Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902
434.979.1922 ext. 103
kristen@theparamount.net

For Immediate Release

November 21, 2006

With dynamic, refined, extraordinary playing, the London-based Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is world-renowned for its musicianship and scholarship.  Performing on original baroque-era instruments, the group’s members -- collectively some of the most outstanding instrumentalists in the field -- are in a sense explorers as much as musicians, finding new colors, new expressivity, and new energies in treasured masterworks of the classical repertoire.  On Tuesday, December 5 at 8 pm, wind players of the group will perform an evening of 18th century pieces by Mozart and Stadler when Soloists of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment bring their “Gran Partita” tour from the UK to Charlottesville. 

This performance is sponsored by SilverCrest Asset Management Group. 
Special Media Sponsor for the event is WMRA Public Radio.

The December 5 program will consist of three works for woodwinds and horns -- two by Mozart and one by Anton Stadler.  The Mozart portion, comprised of the Serenade No. 10 in B flat (K 361) “Gran Partita” for 13 instruments and the Serenade No. 11 in E flat (K 375) for eight instruments, displays the composer’s mastery of the vast expressive possibilities of the winds, ranging from cheerful and exuberant to sublime and transcendent.  This performance of the “Gran Partita” will be faithful to the original manuscript, which is one of the treasures of the Library of Congress.  Completing the evening is the Trio for 3 Basset-horns by Anton Stadler.  An exceptional clarinetist and basset-horn virtuoso for whom Mozart wrote his beautiful Clarinet Concerto (K 622), Stadler is also the individual for whom the “Gran Partita” was first presented in 1784.  

Named to reflect both the period representing much of the music they play as well as the philosophical bent of discovery which fuels their purpose, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was first formed in 1986.  The period instrument ensemble has no single conductor, but is instead directed by musicians of the group appointed on a concert-by-concert basis.  This approach instantly widens the field of leaders to include those who, though with much to contribute, might not otherwise ever face an orchestra of period instruments.  As a result the musicians become the stakeholders, their playing charged with a vibrancy and energy that comes from the entire body.

Seats for the December 5 concert with Soloists of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are $45, $40, $37, and $34.  Students may obtain half-price student rush tickets at the Box Office with a valid ID 45 minutes prior to curtain.  Group discounts are also available.  Tickets may be purchased online or through The Paramount’s Box Office at 434.979.1333. 

For more information about the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, please visit www.oae.co.uk.