Bach with Vollrath and Cohan

2024 SALISH SEA EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL
~ early chamber music on period instruments on Whidbey Island ~

WHAT:            Bach with Vollrath and Cohan
WHEN:           Sunday, June 30, 2024 at 7:30 PM
WHERE:         Unitarian Universalist Congregation in  Freeland on Whidbey Island at 20103 State Route 525
ADMISSION:   suggested donation: $20 to $30 (a free will offering), 18 & under free.

MORE INFO: please see    www.salishseafestival.org/whidbey

Prizewinning harpsichordist Faythe Vollrath from Sacramento, CA will join baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan for a mostly-Bach extravaganza on Sunday evening, June 30 at 7:30 PM at the Whidbey Island Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Freeland, in this eighth and final 2024 Salish Sea Early Music Festival performance.

The program will demonstrate the unparalleled mystery and emotional intensity of Bach’s compositional skill, featuring transcriptions of works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) originally for viola da gamba and another for violin, both with obbligato (or fully written-out) harpsichord in addition to sonatas originally written for flute by Bach both with continuo (a bass line with numbers denoting harmonies from which the harpsichordist improvises) and with obbligato harpsichord. Faythe Vollrath will play variations for solo harpsichord by Johann Adam Reinken (1643-1722) on the popular German folk tune “Schweiget mir von Weibernehmen” (‘shush, no more talk about womanizing”). Reinken was greatly admired by Bach, who made arrangements of several of his works.

Presented in collaboration with the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Whidbey Island, the concert takes place on Sunday, June 30 at at 7:30 PM at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at 20103 State Route 525 in Freeland on Whidbey Island. Admission is by suggested donation (a free will offering) of $20 to $30. Those 18 & under are free. For more information please see www.salishseafestival.org/whidbey.

About the artists:

 Harpsichordist FAYTHE VOLLRATH is actively heard as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States. Hailed by the Wall Street Journal for her “subtly varied tempo and rhythm that sounds like breathing,” her solo performances include venues such as MusicSources in Berkeley, CA, Gothem Early Music in New York City, and Bruton Parish Church in Colonial Williamsburg, VA.

Enamored with the contrast of new music written for historic instruments, Faythe combines new vs. old elements in many of her performances  including concerts of new music in both Serbia and France featuring new American composers, for the Festival of New American Music in Sacramento, CA, and for the Center for New Music in San Francisco, CA. She has paired Japanese harpsichord works with Japanese art at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA, and has performed in a columbarium as part of the Garden of Memory in Oakland, CA.

 Faythe received first prize with an excellence nomination in the Vivaldi International Music Competition, and was a semi-finalist in the Petrichor International Music Competition, both in 2022. Additional awards include first place in the Charleston International Music Competition in 2021, semi-finalist in the 2012 Jurow International Harpsichord Competition, and the 2009 Betchel award recipient presented by the Midwestern Historical Keyboard Society. Her duo, Zweikampf, was a finalist in Early Music America’s inaugural Baroque Performance Competition. They have been featured on public radio in both Michigan and Arizona and perform throughout the United States. Faythe received her doctoral diploma from SUNY-Stony Brook under Arthur Haas, and artist diploma from the U of I Urbana-Champaign under Charlotte Mattax Moersch. She earned her Bachelors of Music in Piano Performance from CSU-Sacramento while studying piano with Richard Cionco.

JEFFREY COHAN, who according to the New York Times can “play several superstar flutists one might name under the table”, and is “The Flute Master” according to the Boston Globe, has performed throughout Europe, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and for the USIA Arts America Program in the South Pacific, South America, Turkey and Portugal. First Prize winner of the Olga Koussevitzky Young Artist Competition in New York and recipient of grants from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music and the French Government, he has received international acclaim as a modern flutist and as one of the foremost specialists on transverse flutes from the renaissance through the early 19th century. He is the only musician to have been awarded both the highest prize in the Concours Musica Antiqua in Bruges, Belgium, which he won together with lutenist Stephen Stubbs, and the Erwin Bodky Award in Boston - two of the most prestigious prizes for performers on period instruments. He is artistic director of the Salish Sea Early Music Festival.

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival presents early chamber music on period instruments around Salish Sea and in Eastern Washington, and is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. The Salish Sea Early Music Festival is proud to be an affiliate organization of Early Music America, which develops, strengthens, and celebrates early music and historically informed performance in North America.