BAREFOOT’S 14TH SEASON, 2024-2025 In Brief:

All the concerts are on Fridays in the Parish Hall of Saint Mary Magdalen Church, 2005 Berryman, Berkeley,at 6.30

Assembling a Barefoot season is a bit like finding what is freshest in the market. This fourteenth season is a particular delight: an unusually generous helping of our core composers (Bach, Couperin, Marais, Jenkins, and Lawes) but with a leavening of the unusual (Dowland, Hume, Fantini, Finger, maybe even Biber). We hope you enjoy it all as much as we undoubtedly will.

Here’s the skinny:

October 11: Local cello legend William Skeen plays Bach suites.

November 15: The iconic Elizabeth Blumenstock and harpsichord guru Corey Jameson play Bach sonatas for violin and harpsichord (and solo music by Bach for violin and for harpsichord).

January 10 (2025): The Fabulous Barefoot All-Stars return to play their annual Winter Concert of viol consort music, this time with a showdown of 6-part music by Lawes and Jenkins (postponed due to Covid from last season). Marie Dalby, Peter Hallifax, Julie Jeffrey, David Morris, Lynn Tetenbaum, and guest star Wendy Gillespie (viols) and Andrew Canepa (organ).

February 21 (2025):  Elizabethan and Jacobean music by Tobias Hume and John Dowland, two great composers who despised each other.  Played by John Lenti (lute) and Hallifax & Jeffrey (viols).

March 28 (2025): Paris in the 20’s.  Gorgeous French Music from the early 17th century by (mostly) Couperin and Marais, including the dramatic “Labyrinthe” and the hypnotic “Sonnerie” by Marais, and Couperin’s third Concert Royal. Hallifax & Jeffrey (viols) with Cynthia Black (violin), and  Katherine Heater (harpsichord).

April 25 (2025):  Dominic Favia, baroque trumpet, Cynthia Black, violin, Derek Tam (harpsichord) and Erik Andersen (cello) present an exciting and unusual program for violin, trumpet, and continuo, including music by Fantini, Finger, and maybe Biber.

May 23 (2025): Hallifax & Jeffrey (viols) with Andrew Canepa (organ) play rarely-heard fantasy-suites for organ and viols by Jenkins and Lawes.