Barefoot Chamber Concerts (“an enterprise noted for both its quality and informality” – San Francisco Classical Voice) presents really good music in the right acoustic and without the formality of most classical music events.
Starting in 2018, Barefoot’s house band The Barefoot All-Stars has presented an annual concert of viol consort music to mark the New Year. This year’s extravaganza features the consort music of the great English composer John Jenkins. Jenkins’ music is remarkable for its formal elegance and unsurpassed lyrical inventiveness. His masterful handling of tonality, sonority, emotion, and sense of seamlessly unfolding narrative brought the viol fantasia to its peak maturity as an artistic form.
John Jenkins had the unusual experience of working for the court of Charles I until that employer was executed, surviving the Commonwealth as a resident musician in the house of a wealthy Catholic, and then being employed by the court again after the restoration of the monarchy. However, since the new monarch, Charles II, had no taste for counterpoint (he liked a good tune, but had difficulty with more complex music), most of Jenkins’ later music was composed for private employers.
The Barefoot All-Stars are joined, for this program, by the great treble viol player Wendy Gillespie. A Jenkins expert (among other things), Gillespie has the distinction of having recorded more consort music than anyone else in the world, and she still remembers most of the music. In the lovely wooden acoustic of the Hillside Swedenborgian Church, this will be an acoustic treat to round off the holidays.
The concert will be without intermission and no more than 75 minutes long. For more information, visit barefootchamberconcerts.com. You can reserve space by emailing [email protected]) or at the door (if not sold out). Masks, proof of vaccination, and 6’ distancing will likely be required (see BarefootchamberConcerts.com website for update).