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From The Providence Journal

String group's performance full of moments to savor

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, April 12, 2004
BY CHANNING GRAY
Journal Arts Writer

Foundling is one of the best things to happen to the local classical music scene in a long, long time.
The fledgling string group gave a stunning performance last night at Grace Church, the kind of program you might expect to hear in major music centers but not around here.
This was loose, fluid playing that was attentive to detail and at its best, able to swing.
A violin duet in the middle of a Bach cantata was about as close to jazz as Baroque music gets.
This all-female ensemble takes its name from the women of the Italian foundling home where Vivaldi once worked as a music teacher.
The group has been working in tandem with the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, as a sort of orchestra with a social mission. Part of the proceeds from its concerts help support the coalition.
Foundling made its debut back in the summer, and last night music director Dana Maiben was talking about launching a Providence season next year. It would be welcomed.
The players, most from the Boston area (although acclaimed Baroque cellist Elisabeth LeGuin lives in California), are all specialists in Baroque performance styles, which calls for a flat, vibratoless tone and a lighter bow technique, not to mention a knack for dressing up melodic lines.
Providence, by virtue of being in the shadow of Boston, an early music mecca, has hosted many a fine Baroque-period group in the past, but none with more bounce and drive than Foundling.
This was playing that was full of surprises, of unexpected twists and turns. And moments worth savoring, like the courtly polonaise from a Handel concerto grosso.
Even the group's wardrobe was a little unusual. The women showed up in jeans and white T-shirts.
Last night's program was all Baroque with a nod to Easter. Boston-area soprano Pamela Murray sang a couple of arias from Handel's Messiah, then ended the evening with Jauchzet Gott, one of Bach's most joyous cantatas.
Kris Ingles joined in on the natural trumpet for the Bach. That's the high valveless cousin of the modern trumpet that's heard so often in Baroque music.
Murray, who has the Baroque sound down cold, was a perfect fit for this band of 14 instrumentalists. She might have carried better, though, had she stood in front of the strings. As it was, her clear but light soprano tended to be overshadowed by the orchestra and gobbled up by Grace Church's ample accoustics.
But her upbeat rendition of "Rejoice greatly" from Messiah was a real treat, with all those running passages sounding so crisp and smooth.
Maiben and Julia McKenzie, interesting and energetic players both, teamed up for some incredible duet work in the Bach, the kind of playing that had a wonderful sense of rapport and that makes Foundling so special.
Let's just hope Providence gets behind this exceptional band of string players.

Foundling celebrates Mozart's 250th

An impressive turnout gathers at Grace Church for the concert by the Baroque string orchestra.

01:00 AM EST on Monday, January 9, 2006

BY CHANNING GRAY
Journal Arts Writer

PROVIDENCE -- For the past couple of seasons, Foundling, the Baroque string orchestra of women who perform in jeans and sweaters with impeccable musicianship, has stuck pretty much to Vivaldi, Bach and Handel.

But with an important Mozart birthday looming on the horizon (the beloved composer's 250th is on Jan. 27), Foundling decided to throw a Mozart birthday bash yesterday at Grace Church, with some well-known and not so well-known offerings on the program.

This was not as thrilling a concert as Foundling's appearance at Grace Church in April 2004. That was inspired, edge-of-your-seat playing.

But still, there was much to savor in this often revealing afternoon of Mozart, such as soprano Pamela Murry's sparkling Exultate, jubilate, and a fine account of the popular Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola.

But the highlight of the afternoon was a joyous, graceful reading of the Symphony 29, an early Mozart masterwork that closed out the program.

Because the forces taking part were so modest (just over a dozen strings and a handful of imported winds), and because the players were using less strident period instruments, such as natural horns, it was possible to hear all sorts of nuances and details that often get swallowed up by an 80-piece orchestra.

This was especially true in the Sinfonia, where the duet work was as clear as can be. Artisic director Dana Maiben tackled the violin solos and conducted when she had a free hand, while Rachel Evans, a Juilliard grad, did the honors of the viola.

The ensemble work was not as tight as it was in the final symphony, but the textures were translucent, even with Grace Church's live acoustics. Some of the best solo interaction came in the lovely slow movement, with its delicate cadenza.

Soprano Murray, who is a regular with Foundling, contributed in the first half of the program a short, brooding aria from The Magic Flute that had its moments. But she could do no wrong in the Exultate, where she leaned into harmonies with a modicum of vibrato and brought the most lovely bell-like quality to top notes.

The group opened with an early symphony, No. 14, which had some humorous harmonic changes in the menuetto, but none of the charms of the later No. 29. That was performed conductorless, with the string players standing, much the way they do in Baroque-era programs.

But for the more complex and demanding Symphony 29, Maiben grabbed a baton to lead the players.

The turnout for the show, by the way, was impressive, perhaps because of Mozart's enduring popularity, or maybe because of a deal with RIPTA to ferry listeners via trolley from the East Side to the steps of the church.

Foundling strings shine in all-Bach performance

The ensemble produces an elegant and refined reading of the third Brandenburg concerto.

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, May 1, 2006

BY CHANNING GRAY
Journal Arts Writer

After an all-Mozart program that was a little soft around the edges, Foundling, the all-female string orchestra that dresses in jeans and plays up a storm, was back in its element yesterday with an all-Bach afternoon at Grace Church in Providence.

It's not that the Mozart program, heard in January, was all that bad. It just didn't have the bite and drive of yesterday's event, which featured a winning rendition of the D Minor double violin concerto, one of Bach's most masterful creations.

The performance paired the group's music director, Dana Maiben, with protegee Susanna Ogata. And the two matched each other beautifully, with one player chasing the other through that intricate maze of melodies. The slow movement was especially touching, and the finale thrilling.

The concerto, the high point of the afternoon, was dedicated to Perry Rosenthal, the Rhode Island Philharmonic's principal cellist, who died last week at the age of 42.

Foundling, named for the Venetian foundling home for girls where Vivaldi taught violin, is made up of harpsichord and about a dozen string players, all using period instruments.

The program was mostly made up of greatest hits, the popular G Major Brandenburg Concerto, No. 3; an excerpt from the great B Minor Mass; and B Minor Overture for flute with its jazzy badinerie. Only the secular cantata, "Non sa che sia dolore," was not well known.

Baroque flutist Sandra Miller did the honors in the overture, bringing to the music a nice snap and buoyancy, while the strings leaned into the beat, giving the music a pleasing thrust.

Pamela Murray, the group's house soprano, didn't do a lot with the "Laudamus te" from the B Minor Mass. Maiben's solo violin work was upbeat and energetic, but Murray seemed to be holding back, just going through the motions.

She was more engaging in the cantata, although that was not quite as catchy a work as the aria from the mass.

If the double violin concerto took top honors, the third Brandenburg, performed with just nine strings, was a close runner-up. This was an elegant, refined reading, especially when it came to the finale. Here the players took their time and let the music breathe, rather than blast through it like so many early music groups tend to.

There was a lightness to the piece, a kind of joyousness that was hard to resist.

Foundling remembers a forgotten master

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, October 8, 2006

By Channing Gray, Journal Arts Writer

The Foundling baroque orchestra has in its first couple of seasons tackled programs of Bach, Mozart and Vivaldi. Last night it took up the cause of a somewhat-overlooked giant of the baroque, Georg Philipp Telemann.

In his day, Telemann, who lived from 1681 to 1767, was actually better known than Bach. But today he exists in the musical shadows.

But the members of Foundling, decked out in their signature getup of jeans and T-shirts, made a convincing case for the forgotten master. Of course, they had a little help from Dutch recorder ace Marion Verbruggen, who lit up Rhode Island College’s Sapinsley Hall with her dazzling performances of the composer’s A Minor Suite and the F Major Concerto. Those two works took up the opening half of the program.

Verbruggen, who has been called the Yo-Yo Ma of the recorder, makes this instrument of schoolchildren everywhere really sing. She not only has an astounding facility, but a wonderful sense of style. Her playing was clean, crisp and beautifully shaped, with lots of snap in the quicker sections and a wonderful lilt to slower movements.

And she had the light touch for the two buoyant minuets that ended the concerto.

It was nice, too, that Verbruggen and the orchestra were on the same page, playing off one another nicely.

After intermission, the players, now with added winds and brass, moved from the stage to the pit for a curious cantata titled Ino. Telemann wrote this dramatic score when he was 84. The plot is a little lame, but the music is lovely, with shades of Mozart in Haydn in some sections. Unlike Bach, who stuck with Baroque idioms until his death, in 1750, Telemann, it turns out, was much more flexible and in tune with the times.

The cantata tells the story of Ino, whose husband is placed under a spell and becomes a demented murderer. After killing one son, he hunts down the fleeing Ino and their other son.

She runs until she reaches a cliff. Facing certain death at the hands of her husband, she decides to leap into the sea.

Miraculously, she finds she has survived and can breathe under water, where she is welcomed by the gods.

Two Dutch artists, friends of Verbruggen, projected images onto screens spread across the stage. Some were classical-looking faces, others were cut-out shadow puppets of mermaids and fish that glided across a big screen at the center of the stage.

But they looked pretty silly, not adding much to the music. In fact, they might have been a distraction.

Resident soprano Pamela Murray sang beautifully, though. Like Verbruggen, she has a nice sense of the period, singing with a sweet clean tone and savoring each phrase.

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