Dryden Ensemble Brings Bach to Princeton

The Dryden Ensemble will perform a free Bach concert at the Princeton Public Library on Sunday, Jan. 15 at 3 p.m.

Th concert is partly to whet Princeton’s appetite for the Ensemble’s Bach Cantata Fest on Jan. 22 at the Princeton Theological Seminary’s Miller Center, said Jane McKinley, the ensemble’s artistic director and oboist.

“We’d like to attract younger people and the library is a good place for that,” McKinley said. "It’s partly to build our audience a little, but also to give people in Princeton something free."

The concert will also give audience members an opportunity to see baroque period instruments-including an oboe circa 1700 and a 17^th century violin- and ask questions about them, 

The Dryden Ensemble was founded in 1994 and named in honor of English poet laureate John Dryden (1631-1700). The group specializes in performing music of the 17th and 18th centuries on period instruments. 

The Ensemble performs three main concerts a year, both in Princeton and Bucks County, Penn. plus a benefit fundraiser each fall and a garden party each spring.

Sunday’s performance will feature Bach arias Bach arias, a violin sonata, and a harpsichord solo with baritone Charles Wesley Evans, Vita Wallace on violin, McKinley on oboe, Motomi Igarashi on viola da gamba 
and Alexandra Snyder Dunbar on harpsichord.

The Ensemble will also perform two free Bach concerts in Princeton in February. The first will be Feb. 24 at 4 p.m. at the Princeton Public Library and include a demonstration and discussion of the three sonatas for viola da gamba and obbligato harpsichord. The second performance will be Feb. 26 at 3 p.m. at the Princeton Theological Seminary’s Miller Chapel and will feature the three sonatas.

That’s a lot of Bach, but that’s just fine by the Ensemble.

“He’s the greatest baroque composer, we never tire of him and we enjoy playing Bach cantatas, they’re not performed that often," McKinley said.

The group performs other works, including Handel in the fall, an upcoming Mozart concert in March and even a program with actors.

“I think we offer the community really imaginative programs and something they might not otherwise hear," McKinley said.