Program and Artist Biography

ArcoVoce is a chamber group made up of some of the East Coast’s most acclaimed performers on both modern and period instruments. ArcoVoce, a name that translates loosely from the Italian for "strings and voice," may be unique in specializing in performances on both sets of instruments, while including vocal chamber music as an integral part of its performances.

ArcoVoce has performed in prestigious venues, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art and German and Dutch embassies, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Lyceum in Alexandria, Virginia, and repeated performances at The Phillips Collection. Notable guest artists who have appeared with ArcoVoce include the celebrated baroque violin Elisabeth Wallfisch, principal cello of Musica Antique Koln Phoebe Carrai, and longtime principal clarinet of the Cleveland Orchestra Franklin Cohen.

ArcoVoce’s performances have been hailed for both their outstanding quality and their remarkable innovation. Examples of ArcoVoce’s innovative programming include pairing the music of Hildegard von Bingen and Olivier Messian—music that stems from the same Catholic mystic tradition notwithstanding the 8-plus centuries between composers. The ensemble’s compact disc The ArcoVoce Chamber Ensemble links two moody, dark works: the Bach E-Minor Sonata for Violin and Continuo and the instrumental song cycle of Shostakovich's Seven Romances to Poems of Alexander Blok.

ArcoVoce also often presents highly meritorious but less familiar pieces from the panoply of Western music, including East Coast premieres of the music of the Dutch baroque composer Cornelius Padbrue, C. P. E. Bach’s contemporary J.C. Graun, and contemporary composer Lori Leitman. ArcoVoce has also made the first recording of trio sonatas of the 17th-century Italian baroque master Isabella Leonarda. The Washington Post wrote of ArcoVoce: “The performances were skilled and dedicated, wonderfully expressive. . . . It is very rare to hear a single ensemble performing so well in such different kinds of music.”