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Monica Huggett, artistic director and violin soloist; Portland Baroque Orchestra
“This is a disc that merits the attention of anybody who appreciates the highest flights of violin playing, from whatever period.” – The Daily Telegraph, review of Monica Huggett’s recording of music by Biber
Monica Huggett celebrates her 20th season with the Portland Baroque Orchestra with a Northwest tour of Vivaldi’s inimitable Four Seasons (plus additional works by Vivaldi and Matthew Locke). Experience sounds and scenes of nature and country life with the virtuosity and theatricality that Monica and the wonderful Portland Baroque Orchestra deliver.
Programme
Vivaldi Violin Concerto “Spring” op. 8 no. 1
Vivaldi String Sinfonia “alla Rustica” RV 151
Vivaldi Violin Concerto “Summer” op. 8 no. 2
INTERMISSION
Locatelli Lamento in F Minor
Vivaldi Violin Concerto “Autumn” op. 8 no. 3
M. Locke Curtain tune from “The Tempest”
Vivaldi Violin Concerto “Winter” op. 8 no. 4
Programme notes
To be added soon…
Monica Huggett, artistic director and violin soloist
From age seventeen, beginning as a freelance violinist in London, Monica Hugget has earned her living solely as a violinist and artistic director and, in 2008, was appointed inaugural artistic director of The Juilliard School’s Historical Performance Program, where she continues as artistic advisor. Monica’s expertise in the musical and social history of the Baroque era is unparalleled among performing musicians today. This huge body of knowledge and understanding, coupled with her unforced and expressive musicality, has made her an invaluable resource to students of baroque violin and period performance practice through the 19th century.
Over the last 40 years, Monica co-founded, with Ton Koopman, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra; founded her own London-based ensemble, Sonnerie; worked with Christopher Hogwood at the Academy of Ancient Music and Trevor Pinnock with the English Concert; toured the United States in concert with James Galway; co-founded, in 2004, the Montana Baroque Festival; and has served as artistic director of Portland Baroque Orchestra since 1994, where she made her first appearance in 1992 playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. From 2006 to 2017, she was also the artistic director for Irish Baroque Orchestra, where she recorded Flights of Fantasy, named by Alex Ross in the New Yorker as Classical Recording of the Year for 2010.
Monica’s recordings, numbering well over 100, have won numerous prizes and acclaim throughout her career. In addition to her baroque violin recordings, she recorded “Angie” with The Rolling Stones in 1972. Monica lives in Portland, where she enjoys cycling and gardening (somewhat compulsively).
Portland Baroque Orchestra
Emerging in the early 1980s as a grassroots cooperative of musicians, the Portland Baroque Orchestra has matured as a polished, professional organization within the ranks of the best period-instrument orchestras in North America and Europe. Succeeding PBO’s regular guest director and artistic advisor Ton Koopman, Monica Huggett has been the group’s artistic director for seventeen years. She is considered one of the premier baroque violinists, and was appointed the inaugural artistic director of the Juilliard School’s Institute for Historical Performance in 2008.
In addition to its October to May Portland subscription series, PBO presents the Pacific Northwest’s only annual performances of Handel’s Messiah on period instruments, and it is a regular collaborator with arts organizations in the Portland region and beyond. In 2009 PBO collaborated with Portland Opera to gather a unique ensemble of 17th-century specialists from around the nation to perform Cavalli’s Venetian masterpiece La Calisto. In that same year, PBO became period ensemble-in-residence of the Oregon Bach Festival and has since represented the Festival in Ashland, Astoria, Bend, Corvallis, Lincoln City, as well as Portland and Eugene, Oregon. In July 2013, to celebrate the fifth year of this partnership, Monica Huggett and members of PBO will join OBF artistic director designate, Matthew Halls, for performances of music by J.S. Bach in Portland, Eugene, Corvallis and Florence, Oregon. In March 2013, PBO joined forces with Portland Opera for a second fully-stage production at the Newmark Theater with Handel’s Rinaldo.
Under the direction of Monica Huggett, in 2011 PBO collaborated with Montreal’s Les Voix Baroques and Portland’s Cappella Romana to produce and record Bach’s St. John Passion. The studio recording of that production, made after critically acclaimed performances in Portland, Eugene, Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., is available on the AVIE label. In April 2014, legendary Dutch bass, Harry van der Kamp will join PBO under Huggett for a program of rarely heard 17th-century German Cantatas with performances in Portland, Salem, Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria, B.C.
