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06/10/2026

Conductor Nic McGegan will lead the Sarasota Orchestra in an evening of "Masters" in concert, featuring music by Schubert, Mozart, and Beethoven on June 13, as part of the Sarasota Music Festival in Sarasota, Florida. The program will include Schubert's Overture in the Italian Style, Mozart's Flute Concerto No. 2 featuring Jasmine Choi, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.

Nicholas McGegan brings his “abundant zeal and affection” (The New York Times) to the Sarasota stage as he leads the Festival Orchestra in symphonic masterpieces by Schubert, Mozart, and Beethoven. The concert opens with Schubert’s effervescent Overture in the Italian Style. Superstar flutist Jasmine Choi brings her “fluent and refined” tone and “impeccable” technique (Musical Opinion) to Mozart’s celebrated Flute Concerto No. 2. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, one of the most popular and lauded works in the classical repertoire, concludes the Festival on a jubilant note.

06/09/2026

Baroque meets drag in this unforgettable cabaret show! Pacific MusicWorks reprises its acclaimed production of An Evening with the Countess, featuring the spectacular bass-baritone John Taylor Ward as the eponymous titular character, on June 10 and 11, presented by the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, a production of the San Francisco Early Music Society. Performances will be June 10 in San Francisco, California, and June 11 in Berkeley, California.

“What do Shakespeare, [Samuel] Pepys, Purcell, Handel, [André] Campra, [Nicola] Matteis, [Nicholas] Lanier, drag, opera, cabaret, cocktails, and brunch have in common? The Countess is a character that has been with me even before I consciously knew or named her. She is an amalgamation of drag, classical music culture, and baroque performance practice. She has the enormous hair and impossible waist (If I do say so myself) of a high baroque aristocrat, the sensibilities of a grand twentieth-century diva, and the messiness of an after-hours open-mic. And, with camp and decadence, she winkingly plays on both registers of the parallel between opera and drag." --John Taylor Ward

Also joining the production is dancer Tshedzom Tingkhye, who adds another layer to this fascinating production. Accompanied by a brilliant Baroque ensemble led by Pacific MusicWorks founding director (and Boston Early Music Festival co-artistic director) Stephen Stubbs, this show will give you a new perspective on the intimate grandeur of the 16th and 17th centuries.

06/06/2026

Soprano Laura Strickling will participate in the Summer of Art Song Festival, sponsored by the Art Song Preservation Society of New York with engagements on June 7 and 9 in New York City.

On June 7, Strickling will perform in recital with Mark Markham and Warren Jones, piano, and Sydney Outlaw, baritone. This special evening showcases celebrated performers whose artistry and leadership in the art song world have inspired audiences and young musicians alike. With a program highlighting vocal beauty, interpretive insight, and collaborative excellence, this concert sets the stage for the inspiring weeks to follow.

On June 9, Strickling will lead a masterclass titled Art Song in Practice: Career, Community, & Collaboration / Contemporary Song. This special evening will combine professional insight with performance workshopping. The session begins with a 30-minute talk, Art Song in Practice: Career, Community, & Collaboration, in which Strickling shares perspectives on building a meaningful and sustainable life in song in the 21st century. The evening continues with a masterclass devoted to contemporary art song in any language, offering singers the opportunity to explore recent repertoire while deepening their expressive range, interpretive imagination, and collaborative skills.

06/05/2026

Tenor James Reese will perform a concert titled Musik vor Bach: 17th century French Airs de Cour with Brandon Acker on baroque guitar and lute, on June 6 in Housatonic, Massachusetts. The concert is presented by the Berkshire Bach Society.

BBS presents an early music concert of 17th century French Airs de cour—secular songs that were unique to France, and popular from the early Baroque through the reign of Louis XIII. Courtly, intimate, and remarkably moving.

06/03/2026

Conductor Nic McGegan will lead the Kaleidoscope Voval Ensemble and Cantata Collective in Bach's St. John Passion from 1725, featuring Sherezade Panthaki, soprano in two performances at the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition. Performances are June 5 in Palo Alto, California, and June 7 in Berkeley, California.

In this blockbuster pairing, Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble—a group of American early music all-star singers celebrating racial and ethnic diversity—teams up with the Bay Area’s beloved Cantata Collective to present a beloved work in a slightly different guise: Johann Sebastian Bach’s 1725 version of his St John Passion. Neither the beginning nor the end are the same as in the version most familiar to listeners today, and several arias are replaced. Nonetheless, the work’s drama emerges in a different and utterly convincing light.

Joining this already remarkable collaboration is celebrated conductor Nicholas McGegan, who needs little introduction to Bay Area audiences as the music director emeritus of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale. A legend in the early music revival, Nic will bring his deep insights into Bach’s masterpiece, which he recently recorded with Cantata Collective in March 2022.

06/02/2026

Tenor James Reese will perform 17th century French Airs de Cour with Brandon Acker on baroque guitar and lute on June 4 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The concert will be presented by the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks.

James Reese and Brandon Acker invite audiences into the intimate and emotionally charged world of the airs de cour, the “songs of the court” that captivated France in the early 1600s. Heard in royal chambers and private homes, these supremely elegant songs were the pop music of French royalty. Both refined and personal, airs de cour pair solo voice with a lute in simple, direct expressions of poetry, revealing a world of longing, tenderness, wit, and heartbreak. These songs are far from distant historical artifacts; they feel modern in their emotional honesty. In this concert, Acker and Reese offer a rare opportunity to connect face-to-face with composers, singers, and poets from hundreds of years ago, whose songs and poetry express all the things that still make us human today.

06/01/2026

A nice baroque bouquet of reviews for conductor Patrick Dupre Quigley with Opera Lafayette's New Woman performance, and tenor Richard Pittsinger with the Oratorio Society of New York's Alexander's Feast.

🎭 "Pittsinger, who is a member of this year’s edition of Le Jardin des Voix (the young artists performing branch of Les Arts Florissants), suavely wielded his light, high tenor with inviting flair..."

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Christopher Corwin picks the flowers of a baroque May in New York City with reviews of concerts starring Lauren Snouffer, Key'mon Murrah, and the Oratorio Society of New York.

05/31/2026

Tenor Richard Pittsinger will perform the role of Damon in Handel's Acis and Galatea, presented by Les Arts Florissants at Wigmore Hall in London, England. The sold out performance will take place on June 1.

Les Arts Florissants and William Christie, hailed by the Guardian for their ‘superb focus, great refinement and real depth of feeling’, have played a key role in securing Wigmore Hall’s status as a world-class centre for the historically informed interpretation of Baroque music. They return with a celebratory performance of Handel’s pastoral drama Acis and Galatea, given in the two-act version he created for the London stage in 1739.

05/30/2026

A wonderful review from Early Music America for Cantata Collective's recording of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, featuring conductor Nic McGegan, tenor Thomas Cooley as the Evangelist, Sherezade Panthaki, soprano, and tenor James Reese.

New recordings of Bach's 'Saint Matthew Passion' continue to come at us apace. The latest, from the Bay Area's Cantata Collective, is highlighted by stellar vocal soloists and by Nicholas McGegan's emotionally subtle conducting.

05/29/2026

The String Orchestra of Brooklyn will present an evening of tragic love stories on Saturday, May 30 at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn Heights.