Our 2011/2012 Season
November 6, 2011
The Aulos Ensemble
In 1973, five Juilliard graduates formed the Aulos Ensemble, at the forefront of a movement that has captured the imagination of the American listening public. Contacts from some of the most prestigious chamber music coordinators in the U.S. soon followed. In the 1980s, they launched their own concert series at home in New York City, setting up collaborations with reputatable guest artists from Europe and America. These collaborative concerts explored a highly unusual repertoire that was impossible to perform in other contexts, and so gave New York audiences cutting-edge performances and also brought Ensemble members vital artistic stimulation. Among the original-instrument movement luminaries that appeared with the Ensemble in those years were harpsichordists Trevor Pinnock and Albert Fuller, violinists Stanley Ritchie and Jaap Schroeder, cellist Anner Bylsma, oboist Michel Piguet, and vocalists Jan de Gaetani, and Julianne Baird.
The 1980s also saw the beginnings of what became a wonderful tradition for New York concertgoers--the Aulos’ Christmas concerts in front of the Christmas tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. These concerts were for many years given in the magical setting of the Medieval Sculpture Court and featured a variety of guest artists.
Aulos continues to give master classes or lecture-demonstrations in 17th- and 18th-century recital practice at colleges and universities throughout the country. With its members serving on faculties of various schools of music and institutes specializing in historically informed performance, the Ensemble is responsible for training a new generation of American early-music performers.
Partnering with Centaur records, Aulos released 3 new CDs: In Dulci Jubilo with Julianne Baird, released fifteen years after the group’s initial Christmas CD from the Museum. A recording of Rameau’s brilliant opera suites from Les Indes galantes and Les Fêtes d'hébé in a never-before-performed chamber music version. And in the fall of 2010, they released “The Bach Family Album,” a collection of excerpts from the ‘Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach’ intermixed with chamber music by his sons.