<\/p>\n
Most people under age 50 consider the Beatles ancient music. Tell them about the sounds of the Baroque era and you get a blank stare.<\/p>\n
But one local group wants to open more eyes \u2014 and ears \u2014 to this world of exotic melodies, harmonies and period-style instruments, which set the stage for what we hear today. That\u2019s the premise of St. Pete Baroque, a band of musicians focused on an often ignored but essential chapter in our musical past.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re dedicated to giving new life to old masterpieces, giving a voice to recently discovered works and bringing audiences the eccentric and improvisatory nature of Baroque music,\u2019\u2019 says Dan Urbanowicz, founder of the group and a violist with the Sarasota Orchestra.<\/p>\n
St. Pete Baroque formed in 2021 with the idea of playing music not heard anywhere else, stuff that resides far outside the repertoire of orchestras and most modern chamber groups. Much of their material comes from composers who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries and created a rich trove of manuscripts to discover \u2014 and rediscover.<\/p>\n
Part of the enchantment comes from the instruments themselves. For instance, a Baroque violin sports a short, flat fingerboard and sheep gut strings tuned A flat instead of the traditional A. This creates a somewhat off kilter pitch of 415 vibrations per second instead of the standard 440.<\/p>\n
This Feb. 28 concert includes instruments you won\u2019t see or hear often, and each musician specializes in their unique sound: Urbanowicz on viola d’amore; Scott Kluksdahl on Baroque cello; Teodora Mitze-Circiumaru on harpsichord and organ; and guest artist Mia Manganon on treble and bass viol as well as bass violone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are different instruments and sounds that you won\u2019t hear in a normal concert hall,\u2019\u2019 Urbanowicz added. \u201cThey\u2019re outside anything most people know, and most are very rare.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The program is hardly predictable, with music by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Louis de Caix d’Hervelois, Isabella Leonarda, and Jean-Philippe Rameau.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s full of unique and quirky pieces never performed in Tampa Bay before,\u2019\u2019 Urbanowicz said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be ending the program with Rameau’s Cinquieme, one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written and one certainly worth hearing for anybody, whether a seasoned listener or first-timer.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Kurt Loft is a journalist and music critic who has written for various newspapers, magazines and arts groups for more than 40 years. A member of the Music Critics Association of North America, he lives in St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most people under age 50 consider the Beatles ancient music. Tell them about the sounds of the Baroque…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[13434,596,76635,202,76636,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-159884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-baroque-masterpieces","9":"tag-pinellas-county","10":"tag-sarasota-orchestra","11":"tag-st-pete","12":"tag-st-pete-baroque","13":"tag-st-pete-headlines","14":"tag-st-pete-news","15":"tag-st-petersburg","16":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","17":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}