The Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival is set to captivate audiences with a diverse program featuring Renaissance, Baroque, and Romantic music. The festival will showcase performances by Oleg Timofeyev on a Renaissance lute, a wire-strung 1761 English guitar, and an 1820 7-string guitar, alongside Jeffrey Cohan on a range of Renaissance and Baroque flutes, including bass, tenor, descant, one-keyed, and an 8-keyed flute from 1820. Together, they will explore folk music from Dutch, Italian, French, English, Scottish, Irish, and Ukrainian traditions, spanning three centuries.
The program is divided into three parts. It begins with early 17th-century Psalm settings and folk melody variations by Jacob Van Eyck, performed alongside Nicolas Vallet’s variations from 1620 on Renaissance transverse flutes and lute. The second segment features Scottish and Irish folk tunes from the early 18th century, interpreted by composers like Francesco Barsanti and Turlough O’Carolan, played on baroque flute and lute. The final section highlights popular early 19th-century melodies, including Irish airs and dances, performed on a rare wire-strung English guitar from 1861 and an Eastern European 7-string guitar from 1820, complemented by an eight-keyed flute made in London in the same year. The program will include works by notable virtuosos of Beethoven’s era, such as Mauro Giuliani, Louis Drouet, and Charles Nicholson.
The festival will return to Annapolis on September 8, 15, and 21, marking its first appearance since the pandemic. The event will feature early chamber music from four centuries, performed on period instruments. Co-sponsored by St. Martin’s Lutheran Church and the Annapolis Friends Meeting, performances will also take place in Baltimore and Washington, DC.
This year’s festival will explore the evolution of 17th-century music in Italy, France, and across Europe, highlighting how “Renaissance” and “Baroque” instrumental colors evolved side by side. The festival will illustrate the dynamic exchange of musical ideas between French and Italian styles and the gradual evolution of instruments, such as the Renaissance transverse flute, which adapted to new expectations of vocal expression later in the century.
