Con Gioia Early Music Ensemble will present a concert of solo and chamber music dedicated to Joseph Haydn at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 2, in Balch Auditorium, Scripps College, Claremont. Preethi de Silva, fortepianist and music director of Con Gioia, will be joined by soprano MaryBeth Haag, as well as violinist Janet Worsely Strauss, and ‘cellist Benjamin Wyatt, performing on period instruments. The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact the Scripps College Music Department at 909-607-3266.
The program comprises works Haydn composed for women performers, as well as a rarely performed work by one of his contemporaries and dedicatee of many of his works, pianist and composer Marianna Auenbrugger. It includes Haydn’s Cantata for Soprano and Fortepiano: Lines from the Battle of the Nile ; Variations in F Minor for Fortepiano, Hob. XVII:6; Fortepiano Trios in E-major and B-flat major, Hob. XV:20 and 29, respectively; and Auenbrugger’s the Sonata for Fortepiano in E-flat major.
Based in Claremont, Con Gioia has performed in the Los Angeles area since 1982. Preethi de Silva is professor of music at Scripps College and an internationally acclaimed concert and recording artist. MaryBeth Haag is lecturer in music at Scripps College, Claremont. She is soprano soloist at the First United Methodist Church, and performs frequently as a soloist in the Los Angeles area. Janet Worsely Strauss is co-founder of the Angeles Ensemble, and performs regularly with Musica Angelica, Seattle Baroque, and the Portland Baroque Orchestra. Benjamin Wyatt who earned his Doctoral of Musical Arts at the University of Southern California has concertized widely in Europe, Japan, Canada, and Mexico, and performs on both modern and baroque cello with chamber music ensembles in the Los Angeles area.