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DURHAM, N.C. — The Mallarmé Chamber Players is proud to announce the line-up for the fourth North Carolina HIP Music Festival. The HIP (Historically Informed Performance) festival will be performed on Renaissance, Baroque and Classical era period instruments with historical performance practices.

The festival will run from February 2nd through February 25th in various venues in Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh. Drawing from the wealth of outstanding early music ensembles based in the Triangle, Virginia and Indiana as well as renowned international musicians, the NC HIP Music Festival will showcase over 60 musicians from 8 different organizations in 13 concerts. Additionally, Mallarmé will present a baroque flute/chamber music workshop given by master flutist Barthold Kuijken, a Discovery Concert for elementary school children at the Carolina Theater, The Vivaldi Project will be in residence at the Duke String School, Forgotten Clefs will give a concert for a local High School and Dr Jonathan Kramer will give several “informances” about historical music and instruments, that will be open to the public (several dates are still TBA). This large-scale collaboration is managed by Mallarmé, which is organizing and marketing the festival, while each ensemble is responsible for its own artistic and fiscal management.

What is HIP?

North Carolina is fortunate to be home to a high concentration of musicians and early music authorities who perform on period instruments. The North Carolina HIP Music Festival was born in 2013 after several years of successful Historical Bach concerts which included violist Suzanne Rousso (Mallarmé), cellists Brent Wissick (UNC-CH), Stephanie Vial (The Vivaldi Project) and Barbara Krumdieck (Ensemble Vermillian), and harpsichordists Elaine Funaro (Aliénor) and Beverly Biggs (Baroque & Beyond). Between the 2013 and 2014 NC HIP Music Festivals, the offering of high-quality early music concerts doubled including performances by prominent international groups such as the Hilliard Ensemble and the English Concert. This original group has broadened to include the Duke Vespers Ensemble, Raleigh Camerata, El Fuego, The Vivaldi Project, Baroque and Beyond, and Heartland Baroque, as well as the Duke and UNC-CH Music Departments.

Collective Desired Oucomes

• To offer a unique musical experience to audiences by presenting a series of dynamic, historically informed performances at a high artistic level.
• To collaborate with like-minded organizations to bring together our respective audiences while increasing awareness, interest and support for early music in the Triangle.
• To strengthen our relationships with schools and the community by offering memorable learning opportunities that blend music and history.

Opening the 2018 NC HIP Music Festival, Mallarmé will present preview lecture by Jonathan Kramer at The Cedars in Chapel Hill on February 2nd at 3:00pm Mallarmé will kick off the musical offerings on February 4 at 3:00pm with “Commissioning Mozart,” a concert featuring Mozart’s G Minor Piano Quartet, as well as music by Madame Jouy de Brillon and a new work for harpsichord, pianoforte and strings by contemporary composer Mark Janello.  This concert is presented in partnership with the Duke University School of Music.

For the first time this year, members from all the HIP ensembles will come together in a dynamic HIP Festival Orchestra, which will perform a concert at Durham’s historic First Presbyterian Church on Feb 17th. The orchestra will be led by renowned Baroque flutist and conductor, Barthold Kuijken. Mr. Kuijken is among the most prominent Belgian musicians involved in the performance of early music on authentic instruments. 

The festival will come to a close on February 25th with a free concert by the Duke Chapel Bach Choir with Philip Cave, conductor at Duke Chapel at 5:15 pm.

Festival calendar

Links to the individual organization websites and venue directions can be found at  hipmusicfestival.org. 

PREVIEW LECTURE: Jonathan Kramer
Friday, Feb 2, 3:00 pm The Cedars, Chapel Hill

CONCERT: Mallarmé Chamber Players, Duke Department of Music | Commissioning Mozart
Sunday, Feb 4, 3:00 pm Baldwin Auditorium, Duke University, Durham

*CONCERT: Mallarmé Chamber Players | Musick Fit For a King
Tuesday, Feb 6, 9:30 and 11:15 am, Carolina Theater, Durham

CONCERT: Baroque and Beyond | Mozart & Bach: Music from Dresden
Friday, Feb 9, 7:30pm St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Durham

*RESIDENCY: The Vivaldi Project at the Duke String School
Saturday, Feb 10, 8:00 am – 3:00 pm

CONCERT: Raleigh Camerata | Concerto Night!
Saturday, Feb 10, 7:30 pm Hayes Barton UMC, Raleigh

CONCERT: The Vivaldi Project | The Art of Musical Conversation, with Elisabeth Wright, harpischord
Sunday, Feb 11, 3:00 pm St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Durham

CONCERT: Brent Wissick and Elaine Funaro | Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord music
Sunday, Feb 11, 7:30 pm Person Hall, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill

CONCERT: El Fuego | Sublime Love
Tuesday, Feb 13, 8:00 pm Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill

CONCERT: Heartland Baroque | Baroquen-Hearted: A Valentine’s Love Letter to 17th Century Italy
Wednesday, Feb 14, 7:30 pm Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill

MASTER CLASS: Bart Kuijken | Baroque Flute and Chamber Music Master Class
Thursday, Feb 15, 7:00 pm Person Hall, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill

CONCERT: Festival Orchestra with Barthold Kuijken, baroque flute and conductor
Saturday, Feb 17, 3:00 pm First Presbyterian Church, Durham

RECEPTION: Hipster Reception (HIPster passholders only)
Saturday, Feb 17, 6:00 pm location TBA

CONCERT: Mallarmé Chamber Players | HIPster Horns Family Concert
Sunday, Feb 18, 1:00 pm Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Durham

CONCERT: Duke Evensong Singers, Christopher Jacobson, conductor | Lighten Our Darkness – Poetry in Music
Sunday, Feb 18, 4:00 pm Duke Chapel, Durham

CONCERT: Andrea Edith Moore, soprano and Jacqueline Nappi, harpsichord| Cocktail BAR-oque
Tuesday, Feb 20, 7:30 pm Alley 26, Durham

CONCERT: Forgotten Clefs – Renaissance Winds | Musique de la Rue
Friday, Feb 23, 7:30 pm St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Durham

CONCERT: Duke Chapel Bach Choir, Philip Cave, conductor | J.S. Bach Missa Brevis, BWV 234, Cantata No. 196
Sunday, Feb 25, 5:15 pm Duke Chapel, Durham

* Not open to the public or HIPster passes

HIPSTER passes are only $75 and will give entrance to ALL events except the 2/10 Residency at the Duke String School and the 2/6 Discovery Concert at the Carolina Theater. HIPSTER passes may be purchased by calling the Mallarmé office at 919/560-2788 or by ordering online at hipmusicfestival.org.  Individual tickets are available through each ensemble’s website or at the door. A HIPSTER pass is nearly 50% less than the individual ticket price and will include an invitation to an exclusive HIPster reception.

Mallarmé annually presents a series of concerts that features diverse and multidisciplinary chamber music. Mallarmé performs everything from Baroque music on period instruments to newly commissioned works by contemporary composers such as Bill Banfield, Stephen Jaffe and Gabriela Lena Frank.  

Mallarmé is a non-profit, tax-exempt, 501(c) 3 organization. The 2017-18 concert season is made possible in part by grants from the Durham Arts Council’s Annual Arts Fund and the North Carolina Arts Council.

Barthold Kuijken: Born in Belgium in 1949, Kuijken began his conservatory studies on the modern flute in Bruges and Brussels, where he played with the Brussels-based contemporary ensemble Musiques Nouvelles. He discovered the baroque flute on his own while in conservatory in Brussels, using the numerous eighteenth-century treatises about the instrument as his guides and drawing inspiration from more general studies in the art, history, and literature of the period. He soon turned to the investigation of the instrument, examining such baroque flutes as could be found in museums and working closely with several instrument makers to create playable copies for performance. Kuijken has made further contributions to the advancement of the baroque flute by rediscovering and editing original seventeenth- and eighteenth-century repertoire for the instrument, including a newly annotated Urtext edition of J.S. Bach's flute compositions for the music publishers Breitkopf and Härtel. He is professor of baroque flute at the Royal Conservatories of Brussels and the Hague.

In addition to playing in the baroque orchestra La Petite bande, Kuijken has an active touring schedule as both soloist and recitalist, with concerts taking him throughout Europe, North and South America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Israel, and Russia. Since 1986, he has also pursued his interests in conducting, with special emphasis on the vocal works of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is currently the artistic director of Indy Baroque, based in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Baroque & Beyond: The series produces period-music concerts under the nonprofit umbrella of Preservation Chapel Hill. The series was launched in 2008 by Artistic Director Beverly Biggs at the invitation of the Preservation Society, which has a rich history of sponsoring musical performances.

Since 2008, Baroque & Beyond has earned the affection of its audience and the respect of its peers. The Chapel Hill series consists of three concerts per season, focusing on music of the baroque, classic, and early romantic eras. Period instruments and historical performances practices are a hallmark of the concerts, along with interesting and innovative programming.

El Fuego: Meaning "fire" in Spanish, El Fuego has impressed audiences with their synthesis of early music and folk styles; their versatility as singers and multi-instrumentalists is shown in their unique repertoire from Spain and the New World colonies. Now based in Chapel Hill, NC, Artistic Director Salomé Sandoval has received wide acclaim for singing while providing her own continuo parts on lutes and guitars; together with period instrumentalists, El Fuego creates an unusually rich sound, full of melodic and rhythmic excitement in their performance of Villancicos, Xácaras and other sacred vocal repertoire, as well as stage music, keeping the flame of little-known musical masters burning in the 21st century.

Forgotten Clefs promotes early music in the United States through performance, research, and educational outreach of pre-tonal musical traditions. Their approach to performance is based on scholarship and deep knowledge of repertoire, period music theory, and the abilities and functions of musicians from Medieval and Renaissance European traditions. Forgotten Clefs was founded in 2014 by students and alumni of the Jacobs School of Music including Charles Wines, Sarah Huebsch, and Kelsey Schilling to perform and promote Renaissance civic wind band music in Indiana and beyond.

Heartland Baroque: Bound by a passion for playing instrumental music of the 17th-Century, Heartland Baroque members Martha Perry and David Wilson, baroque violins, Keith Collins, dulcian, Barbara Krumdieck, baroque cello, and Billy Simms, theorbo are a dynamic instrumental chamber music ensemble made up of early music specialists from all over the United States. Its members hail from California, Indiana, North Carolina, and Maryland, and often perform together in other well-known historically-informed period instrument ensembles around the country. Heartland Baroque endeavors to dive into this musical world with passion and vigor, highlighting the immediacy and technical brilliance, the vivacity and profundity, the lilt, complexity, and spontaneity of these composers.

Raleigh Camerata is a group of period musicians located in the central North Carolina area dedicated to the performance of small to midsize chamber music of the Renaissance through early Classical periods on copies of instruments used in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

Led by artistic director Kelly Nivison Roudabush, the Raleigh Camerata strives to bring the seldom heard literature and composers to audiences through creative concert programming, bringing early music to life in the Raleigh-Durham area.

The Vivaldi Project explores the important Italian influence on the mid-18th century String Trio. Beginning with J.S. Bach's appreciation for Italian contrapuntal techniques and concertante styles, and his youngest son, J.C. Bach's love of Italian opera, the Vivaldi Project brings to life the richly varied, yet overlooked Classical string trio as it emerges from the Baroque trio sonata. Works by members of the Bach family are performed alongside those of Vivaldi, C.A. Campioni, Haydn, and others revealing an abiding love for all things Italian.

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CONTACT:

Suzanne Rousso
919/560-2701
suzanne@mallarmemusic.org