The seemingly never-ending cold and monotonous grayness of winter is pushing many of us past our breaking points.
The time has come to stop sitting around, hoping for a summer that seems far away, and instead take advantage of happy events going on now. One such event is An Evening at the Baroque Salon.
“This event is actually supposed to be like a Baroque party, because that’s like what Salons were, right? They were just like a big party,” said Paul Hill, founder and member of the Baroque Student Group, which has been the driving force behind An Evening at the Baroque Salon, with help from The Party and Baroque dance specialist Carly Schaub.
The Baroque Student Group is composed of students from the School of Music. They focus on pieces composed during — you guessed it — the Baroque era.
“The Golden Age of Baroque was really like 1615 to 1715, 1725,” Hill explains. “It includes some of the big composers like Bach, Handel, Telemann, Monteverdi and Vivaldi … The aesthetic that people were going for at this time was very much about the luxury. I think of these beautiful French courts — to me, that really exemplifies the Baroque.”
To encourage the party feel, there will be two segments to the evening. The first hour will be a Salon hour, mirroring the Salon events of 17th century France.
“There will be some music going on, there will be food, there will be coffee, tea … hot chocolate, for those who don’t do coffee or tea. And some of it will be things that people in the Baroque era would have had in the palaces and the salons,” Hill said.
Baroque-style dance specialist Schaub, along with a few other dancers, will be performing dances specific to the era during this first hour, while musicians from the Baroque Student Group provide background music. Brave souls will also have the option to learn some of the Baroque-era dance steps from Schaub.
The second hour will be more like a traditional concert, but it will involve collaboration. The final song, from a scene of Handel’s opera “Julius Caesar,” will involve both music and dance; that is, if it is ready in time.
“Well, we’re hoping to do that one,” Hill said. “That one, we’re still in the rehearsal process, making sure it’s ready and everything, as it goes with music.”
The Baroque Student Group will be performing a few big numbers before hitting the opera scene, including a “Coffee Cantata,” which is all about coffee’s corrupting influence on society and should be a funny piece to listen to while sipping free coffee.
Hill hopes students and the general public will feel more comfortable attending this event than they might have felt attending a traditional concert, which is a big reason behind the Baroque Student Group’s collaboration with The Party to get it publicized.
“In a big way, we’re hoping to tap into a network that [The Party] have already built through some very successful and really great events already this year,” he explains. “We want students to come out — we want people in the community to come in and experience it. The idea of the event is that it’s not an exclusive … we don’t want anyone to feel like they have to have a certain set of knowledge to come and have a good time. A big part of the group is education and helping people understand, like, why would we want to do Baroque music in the first place? We don’t want to appear pretentious or snobbish, which I know music can sometimes come off that way, especially classical music.”
An Evening at the Baroque Salon will take place Sunday, Apr. 10 from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Thompson Chamber Hall. This event is free.