Arts & Lectures
2005-2006 Performing Arts Season News Release
For Immediate Release

October 18, 2005

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents the Aulos Ensemble with soprano Julianne Baird in a Baroque Christmas concert at Trinity Episcopal Church

Summary Facts:

The spirited Aulos, one of the first American “original instrument” ensembles, will be joined by soprano Julianne Baird for a special Baroque Christmas concert on Sunday, December 4 at 3 & 5:30 pm at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1500 State Street. These Chamber Music in Historic Sites® concerts presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures will feature traditional carols, instrumental noëls, cantatas and arias of Bach and Scarlatti, a program the Aulos performs annually at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The New York Times raves, “If it has to be just one Christmas concert, this is it!”

Formed in 1973 by five Juilliard graduates, the Aulos Ensemble was at the forefront of a movement that was to capture the imagination of the American listening public. In 1978 with the release of their recording Masterpieces of the High Baroque, Aulos firmly established its reputation for exhilarating performances informed with scholarly insight. In those groundbreaking years, the group’s innovative programming, which features a blend of flute, oboe, violin, cello and harpsichord, combined with an uncompromising standard of excellence in performance, resulted in invitations from virtually all of this country’s major chamber music presenters. This exposure helped create a new audience awareness for this rewarding repertoire performed on period instruments while critics like the one at the San Francisco Examiner called one Aulos concert “the most exhilarating examples of Baroque playing these ears have heard.”

Flutist Christopher Krueger, oboist Marc Schachman, violinist Linda Quan, cellist Myron Lutzke, and harpsichordist Arthur Haas are among the world’s leading performers on baroque instruments today. Aulos’ groundbreaking, award-winning recordings for MHS/Musicmasters, featuring sets of Bach, Handel, Telemann, and Vivaldi, is unmatched by any other American group.

Julianne Baird, soprano, has been hailed as “one of the most extraordinary voices in the service of early music that this generation has produced. She possesses a natural musicianship which engenders singing of supreme expressive beauty.” In addition to solo recitals and performances of baroque opera and oratorio, Baird has also appeared as soloist with many major symphony orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnanyi, the Brooklyn Philharmonic under Lukas Foss, the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and the Philadelphia Orchestra. With over 100 recordings to her credit on Decca, Deutsche Gramophone, Newport Classics and Dorian, Julianne Baird is one of America’s most recorded women. Baird earned degrees from the Eastman School and the Salzburg Mozarteum and a PhD in music history from Stanford University. She is a professor at Rutgers University.

The historic site for this performance, Trinity Episcopal Church was built in 1912 in the English Gothic Revival Style, incorporating elements suggesting a history spanning the Saxon through Tudor Periods. As with most English-style churches, there is a single tower and “Cistercian” (flat-walled and windowed) east end. The architects of the Church were the firm of Frohman and Marsten of Pasadena. Trinity Episcopal was the first church designed by Phillip Hubert Frohman who went on to design some fifty more churches and became the Supervising Architect of the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. The windows include a fine example of the Los Angeles Art Glass Studio, with the remaining work by the Gudson Studio of Los Angeles. The church is sure to be an inspiring setting for Aulos and Ms. Baird.

These concerts are the first of three performances in UCSB Arts & Lectures’ 2005-2006 performing arts season held in conjunction with the distinguished Los Angeles-based Chamber Music in Historic Sites.® This five year-old partnership allows Arts & Lectures to travel to unique and intimate environments to celebrate the experience of music in sacred, social and architectural contexts. The next concerts will be performed by guitarist Sharon Isbin at a site to be announced on May 10 and Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz Trio at Rockwood on May 21.

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Aulos Ensemble by agreement with Chamber Music in Historic Sites®—a nationally licensed series, Dr. MaryAnn Bonino, president and founder. Thanks to the Pearl Chase Society for its support and to the Goleta Valley Voice for sponsoring this concert. This project is funded in part by the Organizational Development Program using funds provided by the City of Santa Barbara in partnership with the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission, and by the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF) and the National Endowment for the Arts. Tickets are $40 for the general public and $15 for UCSB students who must show valid ID at ticket purchase and at the show. Ticket includes a reception with the artists.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.

©2005 UCSB Arts & Lectures, University of California, Santa Barbara