THE WROCŁAW BAROQUE ENSEMBLE, ANDRZEJ KOSENDIAK (conductor), ALICIA AMO (soprano)

Conductor, educator and cultural organiser Andrzej Kosendiak is the creator of numerous education programmes and the founder of both an early music department and a school of jazz and popular music. As a conductor, he is one of the pioneers of historically informed performance in Poland. In 2012 he founded the Wrocław Baroque Ensemble, which specialises in less frequently performed works from the central European repertoire, giving historically informed performances of a wide variety of early music, from chamber works to oratorios and cantatas, with a particular focus on the music of the Polish Renaissance and Baroque. Kosendiak and the ensemble return to Ljubljana following their appearance at the Ljubljana Festival in 2020. This time they will present works by the Gdansk-born German composer Kaspar Förster, who was a pupil of Giacomo Carissimi (a master of the early Baroque, active in Poland, Italy and Denmark). Kosendiak and the Wrocław Baroque Ensemble have been responsible for the first performances and recordings of several of Förster’s works. The evening will conclude with a performance of Carissimi’s oratorio Jephte,  consisting of four scenes: a description of battle, a song of victory, a conversation between Jephthah and his daughter in which a tragic error is revealed, and a closing lament. The soloist will be the Spanish soprano Alicia Amo, one of the founders of the Musica Boscareccia ensemble, nominated for a prestigious ICMA award.

Programme:
Kaspar Förster:
Credo quod redemptor
Quanta fecisti Domine
Celebramus te Jehova
Sonata a 3 in F-major “La Sidon”
Dialogi Davidis cum Philisteo
Intenderunt arcum
Ad arma fideles
Sonata a 3 in G-major
Giacomo Carissimi: Jephte