Martha Folts ~ Buxtehude 300th anniversary

The Academy of Early Music

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Martha Folts Plays Harpsichord and Clavichord

to Celebrate Buxtehude 300th Anniversary

At 8:00 on Saturday, October 27, keyboard artist Martha Folts will present “Buxtehude and His Circle: Teachers, Colleagues and Students” at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 306 N. Division, Ann Arbor. This opening concert of the Academy’s 2007– 2008 season commemorates the 300th anniversary of the death of Dietrich Buxtehude (1637–1707).

About the Music

The program will feature harpsichord and clavichord music by Buxtehude and some of the composers whom Buxtehude knew in his lifetime, by whom he was influenced, and whom he taught. Some of these composers include:

w Matthias Weckmann in Hamburg

w Johann Adam Reincken, also in Hamburg

w Johann Pachelbel, who in 1699 in Nuremberg dedicated his Hexachordum Apollinis to Buxtehude

w Nicolas Lebègue, whose suites both Reincken and Buxtehude admired, incorporating stylistic ideas into their own suites for the harpsichord

w Heinrich Scheidemann, with whom Buxtehude and Reincken may have studied in Hamburg

w J. S. Bach, who in the early days of his career made a famous trip to Lübeck to hear and study Buxtehude’s music

As a composer of both sacred and secular works, Buxtehude was a master of baroque music in northern Europe, and was responsible for directing the Abendmusik concert series at Saint Mary's Church in Lübeck.

These concerts attracted prominent visitors from all over Germany, including George Frederic Handel and twenty-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach, who both visited in 1705. The young Bach walked 250 miles from Thuringia to Lübeck, drawn by Buxtehude's reputation as a virtuoso. Bach’s planned four-week visit stretched to four months, and his later compositions were very much influenced by Buxtehude.

About Martha Folts

Martha Folts has presented recitals and workshops of 16th – 18th century keyboard repertoire at community venues, colleges, and universities throughout the United States and in The Netherlands, France, Germany, and Denmark. She completed the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in harpsichord performance at the University of Michigan in 2000, studying with Edward Parmentier. She has taught at Iowa State University, Miami University in Ohio, Adrian College in Michigan, and at the U-M School of Music.

Dr. Folts is a founding member of La Gente d’Orfeo, an Ann Arbor ensemble which specializes in 17th-century Italian repertoire. She recently recorded the thirty sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti known as the Essercizi (1738), available on Harpsicat Records. She has recorded for the Delos and Musical Heritage Society labels, and her recorded performances on both organ and harpsichord have been broadcast on WGUC-FM in Cincinnati and over Minnesota Public Radio. Please visit her website: www.marthafolts.com.

The instruments Dr. Folts will play in this concert are a two-manual harpsichord based on Ruckers/German models (built by Keith Hill in 1992) and a clavichord based on an instrument by J. Silbermann of Strassburg (built by Midge Ploger and Keith Hill in 2007). This is a rare opportunity to hear a live performance on the clavichord, a delicate instrument favored among members of the Bach circle as it allowed performers the finest nuances of expression.

Mark Your Calendars

The Buxtehude Anniversary Concert will take place at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 27th, at the Academy’s 2007– 2008 Concert Series location, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 306 North Division, Ann Arbor. Concertgoers have permission to park in the Community High School and Ann Arbor News parking lots, each just a block away. (See the parking map on back page.)

Open seating tickets, available at the door from 7:30, are $15 general admission, $12 for seniors and Academy of Early Music Members, $5 for students. For more information, call 734-665-5758.