Summer baroque in Sonoma

Spend a summer afternoon enjoying “Music of the French Baroque celebrating the Beauty of Nature” when Florilegia, a Bay-Area ensemble, performs at Burlingame Hall, First Congregational Church, 252 W. Spain St., at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 12.
Sponsored by the Sonoma Classical Music Society, Florilegia will perform works by Jean-Philippe Rameau, France’s leading composer of the 18th century, as well as works by Francois Couperin, Marin Marais, and Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre. Tickets are $25 for adults, $20 for members of the Sonoma Classical Music Society, $10 for students, and may be obtained from Readers’ Books, Pharmaca, the Sonoma Music Store, at www.sonomaclassical.com, and at the door. There will be one intermission, and refreshments will be served.
Florilegia is comprised of Sara Colburn, soprano, who sang in Sonoma last December with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, to great acclaim, David Wilson, violin, Katherine Heater, harpsichord, and David Morris, viola da gamba. The group was founded in Bloomington, Ind., in 1996, where its members attended the Early Music Institute at Indiana University, to perform music of a wide variety of styles and periods, while concentrating on 17th- and 18th-century repertoire for voice and strings. The group’s name originates in the writings of the late seventeenth-century composer Georg Muffat, who described his two collections of dance suites as florilegia or “bouquets.” The ensemble made its Bay Area debut at the 1998 Berkeley Early Music Festival and Exhibition and is very active in the Bay Area early and Baroque music scene. Its members have also performed with ensembles in Seattle, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Atlanta and New York.
The Aug. 12 program will consist of three works by Jean-Philippe Rameau, the pre-eminent composer of his era, whose unique use of rhythm and syncopation makes his music instantly recognizable: his “Cantate pour le jour de Saint-Louis,” “L’impatience,” and the “Premier Concert, Pieces de Clavecin en Concert.” Also performed will be Francois Couperin’s “Troisieme Concert, Concerts Royaux,” Marin Marais’ “La sonnerie de Saint-Genevieve do Mont de Paris,” and will conclude with “L’Isle de Delos” by Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (1665 – 1729), who was a brilliant harpsichordist and who composed cantatas, ballets, and operas.
The next concert in the Sonoma Classical Music Society’s 2007 series will be Sunday, Nov. 4, when the Tilden Trio will perform works by Beethoven, Arensky, and Ravel.