The ASPECT Foundation for Music & Arts concludes its third New York City season of illuminating performances with Music Of The 18th Century Grand Tour on Thursday, May 30, at Bohemian National Hall.

The concert features New York’s Four Nations Ensemble and soprano Pascale Beaudin in a program celebrating the 18th century culture of Paris, Venice, Rome, and Napes, including Jean-Baptiste Quentin’s Quatuor in A, Op. 12, No. 1; selected Gondoliere Songs arranged by Johann Hasse; Vivaldi’s Concerto in F Major for Flute, Op. 10, No. 5; Corelli’s La Folia, Op. 5, No. 12; and Pergolesi’s Orfeo for Soprano and Strings.

Historian John Brewer, author of The Pleasures of the Imagination, presents an illustrated talk that takes the audience on a musical journey to better understand the historical and artistic importance of the "Grand Tour" – a trip wealthy young men in the 18th century customarily took to experience art, culture, and forbidden pleasures after they'd finished their formal education.

The tickets are $45 and include wine and refreshments. Tickets can be purchased online.

Performers

Pascale Beaudin, soprano
Four Nations Ensemble
     Charles Brink, flute
     Olivier Brault & Adriane Post, violin
     Kyle Miller, viola
     Loretta O'Sullivan, cello
     Ann Trout, bass
     Adam Cockerham, lute & guitar
     Andrew Appel, harpsichord
John Brewer, author and historian

Program

PARIS
Jean-Baptiste Quentin: Quatuor in A, Op. 12, No. 1

VENICE
Arr. Johann Hasse: Gondoliere Songs
Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in F Major for Flute, Op. 10, No. 5

ROME
Arcangelo Corelli: La Folia, Op. 5, No. 12                                                           

NAPLES
Giovanni Pergolesi: Orfeo for Soprano and Strings       

About John Brewer

John Brewer's current research interests are focused on two areas: issues of value in the visual-art world and questions of travel, tourism, identity, and place. He has had a long-standing interest in the fraught relationship between culture and money, on which he has written extensively over the last 10 years. Part of this project has already appeared as The American Leonardo: A Tale of Obsession, Art, and Money (Oxford University Press, 2009), but he continues to pursue this topic through an ongoing investigation of the place of curators in fine-art museums and their complex relations with art scientists and conservators, as well as their struggle to retain their integrity in a world increasingly dominated by market forces. Brewer's second project examines travel, tourism, and identity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a time when the terms "tourism" and "tourist" first came into common use. Brewer has held faculty positions at the University of Chicago, European University Institute in Florence, UCLA, Harvard University, Yale University, and Cambridge University. He has also been a visiting professor at Washington University in St. Louis and a research fellow at Cambridge University. His book The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997) was a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee in criticism and won the Wolfson History Prize in 1998.                                        

About Pascale Beaudin

Pascale Beaudin began her career on stage with the Atelier Lyrique de l’Opera de Montreal. She appears on operatic stages in Canada (Opéra de Montréal, Opera Lyra Ottawa, Opéra de Québec), in France (Angers-Nantes Opéra, Opéra de Marseille, Opéra National de Lorraine, Opéra de Metz) and the United States (Opera Lafayette) in roles such as Zerlina, Papagena, Fiordiligi, Oscar, Adèle de Formoutiers and Nannetta. The New York Times praised her “shimmering voice and girlish sassiness,” while The Washington Post reported that she sang “the aria Per pietà with such deliberate quiet elegance and restraint that it was a highlight not just of the evening, but also of my year.”

Beaudin’s incomparable diction, intelligent musicality and expressivity make her ideal for concert and recital work. In addition to being a permanent member of the Four Nations Ensemble, Mrs. Beaudin collaborates with many orchestras, namely the Orchestre Métropolitain, l’Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, Les Violons du Roy, I Musici de Montréal, the Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal, the McGill Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Francophonie, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, Les Idées Heureuses, Montréal Baroque, the Société d’art vocal de Montréal, the Centre international de mélodie française de Tours and the Orchestre régional de Cannes. She has been invited to perform in music festivals such as the Festival de Lanaudière, the Festival d’opéra de Québec, the Montreal Bach Festival, the Festival des musiques sacrées de Marseille, the Festival du Domaine Forget.

About Four Nations Ensemble

Founded in 1986, The Four Nations Ensemble brings together soloists, frontrunners from several generations, who are leading exponents of period instrument and vocal performance. With a core ensemble of soprano, harpsichord or fortepiano, 2 violin, flute, and cello, Four Nations’ repertory runs from the Renaissance through Viennese Classical masterpieces of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

For four decades, Four Nations has developed a leading presence on the early music scene in New York and across the country. Four Nations has performed at major houses and on prestigious series throughout the United States including The Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center. Of special interest is Four Nations' resident ensemble status for both the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT. where the rich holdings of the two art collections and the brilliant curatorial staffs are an inspiration for music programming.

The Four Nations Ensemble takes its name from one of France's most extraordinary institutions. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Louis XIV and Mazarin, in order to establish a centralized bureau for the arts to reflect the glory of Versailles and Paris in this golden age, created The College of Four Nations.

About ASPECT Foundation for Music and Arts

ASPECT Foundation for Music and Arts was founded by Irina Knaster in London in 2011 and relocated to New York City in 2016. ASPECT presents a new concert format – one that transforms the traditional recital into an intimate, engaging, and thought-provoking blend of performance, speech, and image.

The Foundation’s chamber-music events feature some of today’s leading musicians and music experts. For each concert, they set the works on the program in context with presentations supported by visuals. These “illustrated talks” reveal fascinating details about the composer, the music, and the cultural history of the period in question.

ASPECT aims both to support and promote artists, and to welcome audiences old and new to explore new aspects of a classical repertoire of endless riches. It’s more than a concert. To find out more, please visit ASPECT Foundation website.