PBO to Present “Bonus” Program of English Song

Soprano Rowan Pierce (courtesy of PBO)

About a week ago the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale (PBO) announced a “special addition” to its programming for the 2021/22 season. Since there will not be a concert in January, there will, instead, be an evening of English song spanning the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. The vocalist will be soprano Rowan Pierce, who made her PBO debut last July when the Orchestra was touring in New York. She will be accompanied by keyboardist Christopher Glynn, who recently released an album with Rachel Podger presenting newly completed fragments of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for violin and fortepiano.

The program will be structured around four songs by Henry Purcell. The program will begin with his “Morning Hymn” and conclude with the “Evening Hymn.” These will frame performances of “Sweeter than Roses” and “Celia had a thousand charms,” along with a wide variety of selections by other composers. If I may be allowed to “play favorites,” I am particularly interested in the program preferring Frank Bridge to his best-known pupil Benjamin Britten. The Bridge selection will be “Go not, happy day,” which, thus far, I have experienced only through recordings. An event page has been created listing all of the selections on the program.

This recital will be given only one performance, at 8 p.m. on Saturday, January 22. The venue will be the Taube Atrium Theater, which is located on the fourth floor of the Veterans Building. Readers probably know by now that this building is located at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street, a corner with Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel. Seating will be general admission, and all tickets are being sold for $85. A Web page has been created for online purchase.