Les Caractéres de la Danse

Thursday, November 21, 2019 | 7:00 p.m.
Rushford-Peterson Auditorium, Rushford (map)
Admission is FREE to our Rushford concert.

Friday, November 22, 2019 | 7:30 p.m.
Mount Olive Lutheran Church, Rochester (map)

Saturday, November 23, 2019 | 7:30 p.m.
Sundin Hall, Hamline University, St. Paul (map)
Check out the Baroque Dance Workshop before this concert here!

Pre-concert talk begins at 6:30 p.m. for all concerts.

*Note: Tickets ordered after November 15 will automatically be added to the will call list. 

We welcome back Paige Whitley-Bauguess and her dance partner Thomas Baird for a baroque music and dance extravaganza! Presenting Les Caractéres de la Danse by Jean-Féry Rebel and Leclair violin concerti led by baroque violin virtuoso Luís Otavio Santos.

Luís Otávio Santos, baroque violin
Paige Whitley-Bauguess, dance
Thomas Baird, dance

REPERTOIRE

Jean-Féry Rebel (1666–1747)
Les Caractéres de la Danse

La Fantaisie

Les Plaisirs Champêtres

Jean Marie Leclair (1697–1764)
Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 7, No. V

Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 7, No. 1

Guest Artists

Luís Otávio Santos 

Born in Brazil, Luís Otávio Santos comes from a family of musicians and began his musical studies at an early age—first on the piano, and then on the violin. His interest in baroque music took him to the Netherlands in 1990 to study baroque violin at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Sigiswald Kuijken, and harpsichord with Jacques Ogg. At eighteen, he was already one of the main members and soloists of La Petite Bande, a Belgian baroque orchestra that plays a leading role in the early music movement worldwide. With this group, he toured extensively in Europe, Asia, and South America, and also made more than seventy CDs and television recordings. His reputation as a baroque violin virtuoso also earned him leading positions in other important European ensembles, such as Le Concert Français, Ricercar Consort, Nederlandse Bachverening, Il Fondamento, and Complesso Barocco.

Santos has made several acclaimed solo recordings, including one of the Bach sonatas for violin and harpsichord with Pieter-Jan Belder for the Dutch CD label Brilliant. In 2005 he received the Diapason d’Or for his recording of Jean-Marie Leclair sonatas for the label Ramée. From 1997 to 2001, he was professor of baroque violin at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole, Italy. He was also a guest teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, as assistant to Sigiswald Kuijken, from 1998 to 2005.

In his home country of Brazil, Santos is the Artistic Director of the Festival Internacional de Musica Colonial Brasileira e Musica Antiga de Juiz de Fora, which he founded in 1990. During its twenty-five years, the Festival has garnered several national awards. Its recordings of Brazilian Colonial Music were awarded the Brazilian Ministry of Culture’s IPHAN prize for the preservation of Brazil’s heritage and cultural past, and several scholarly publications and previously unpublished works have also been performed during the event. Santos is currently the director of the early music department of the School of Music of São Paulo (EMESP), where he also teaches baroque violin. He received a doctorate in music from UNICAMP (University of Campinas), and he is increasingly invited to conduct modern orchestras in Brazil, in repertoire ranging from opera to symphonic

Paige Whitley-Bauguess 

Paige Whitley-Bauguess interprets, recreates, and performs Baroque theatre dance in venues all over the world. A recent presenter wrote, “what [she does] is excellent – artistic, interesting, historic – and downright exciting not to mention fun…one could not ask for more” (Steven Cooksey, Shenandoah University). She is co-director of the Baroque Arts Project with Barry Bauguess and producer of two baroque dance DVDs: Introduction to Baroque Dance-Dance Types and Dance of the French Baroque Theatre featuring artistic collaborations with Thomas Baird. Paige has stage directed baroque operas for festivals and universities in the US and has given masterclasses and workshops at universities, museums, and historical sites in the US, Canada, and Japan. She is a former member of the NY Baroque Dance Company and holds an MA in Dance History from the University of California at Riverside and a BFA in Ballet from the NC School of the Arts.

Thomas Baird

Thomas Baird co-directs Apollo’s Banquet, a New York City-based dance and music ensemble, and from 1998 to 2008, directed the annual East Coast Baroque Dance Workshop at Rutgers University. Thomas lectures regularly at the Juilliard School, Mannes School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, and teaches Movement Styles for Singers at the State University of New York–Purchase where he also choreographs the opera productions. He was the Period Movement Coach for the Broadway production of O’Neill’s A Touch of the Poet, and, at Lincoln Center Theatre, Sheridan’s The Rivals. In 2005, he provided period dances for the Metropolitan Opera’s Cyrano de Bergerac, revived in the 2016-17 Met season. From 2006-2016 Thomas choreographed and performed period dances for the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts at Avery Fisher Hall. For twenty years, he has taught Baroque dance for the Tokyo Baroque Dance Society, and has also taught period dances for the London-based Dance Masters in Urbania, Italy.