A Musical Offering

Works from the Court of Frederick the Great

Saturday, January 25 • 7:30 pm
Series Subscription Concert
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church
1001 Queens Road, Charlotte, NC 28207

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Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient (2023) Emi Ferguson makes her highly-anticipated debut with Bach Akademie Charlotte in a program inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s legendary 1747 meeting with Frederick the Great. Centered on Bach’s The Musical Offering, this virtuosic collection is paired with works by Frederick the Great, C.P.E. Bach, and J.C.F. Bach.

Guy Fishman, leader/cello
Emi Ferguson, transverse flute
Aisslinn Nosky, violin
Renée Hemsing, violin and viola
Ian Watson, harpsichord

SAVE with a 2-Concert Package:
“A Musical Offering” on Saturday, January 25
PLUS
“Bach Cantatas for Solo Voices” on Saturday, May 10.

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General Admission: $36.75
Premium Preferred Seating: $52.50
30&Under (ages 18–30): $15.00 per concert (general admission)
Under 18: Free

In 1747, an elderly Johann Sebastian Bach was summoned from Leipzig to the Royal Court in Potsdam to visit Frederick the Great, King of Prussia—as well as his own son, C.P.E. Bach, who was employed at court. The king, an avid flutist and composer, prepared (or had someone prepare) a complex tune and, upon meeting Bach, asked him to improvise a three-voice fugue upon the “Royal Theme,” which Bach dispatched to the amazement of all present.

Perhaps wanting to embarrass Bach, the king then asked him for a six-voiced improvised fugue. Bach declined, but promised to send the king a working-out of a six-voice fugue upon the now-famous theme.

This gift—a fugue in six voices as well as multiple canons, fugues, and a sonata, all involving the king's flute—is known as the “Musical Offering,” and contains musical riddles, theological commentary, and virtuoso writing. Music by Bach’s sons and the king himself precedes Bach Akademie Charlotte's regifting of Bach’s monumental and beautiful tribute not only to the author of the tune, but to his own mastery of counterpoint and invention.

Guest musician Emi Ferguson is one of the nation’s premier baroque flutists. This is her first appearance with Bach Akademie Charlotte.

Johann Sebastian BACH Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta*, BWV 1079 (Musical Offering)
Frederick II, King of Prussia Sonata no. 9 in E minor for flute and continuo, SpiF 154
Carl Philipp Emanuel BACH Sonata in D major for violin and keyboard, Wq 71
Carl Heinrich GRAUN Sonata for Violoncello and Continuo in C major, B:XVII:53

“Frederick the Great Playing the Flute at Sanssouci” (Flötenkonzert Friedrichs des Großen in Sanssouci). Oil on canvas, Adolph Menzel, 1852. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach is the harpshichord player.

Emi Ferguson

Hailed by critics for her “tonal bloom” and “hauntingly beautiful performances,” English-American performer and composer Emi Ferguson stretches the boundaries of what is expected of modern-day musicians. Emi’s unique approach to the flute can be heard in performances that alternate between the Silver Flute, Historical Flutes, and Auxilary Flutes, playing repertoire that stretches from the Renaissance to today.

Emi is a 2023 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, and can be heard live in concerts and festivals around the world as a soloist and with groups including AMOC*, Ruckus, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Manhattan Chamber Players. Emi has been named the new music director of Camerata Pacifica Baroque in Southern California, dreaming up programs of and inspired by Baroque music for Californian concert goers. Emi was a featured performer alongside Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Simon, and James Taylor at the 10th Anniversary Memorial Ceremony of 9/11 at Ground Zero, where her performance of Amazing Grace was televised worldwide. Her performance that day is now part of the permanent collection at the 911 Museum.

Her debut album, Amour Cruel, an indie-pop song cycle inspired by the music of the 17th century French court was released by Arezzo Music in September 2017, spending 4 weeks on the Classical, Classical Crossover, and World Music Billboard Charts. Her 2019 album Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes, a collaboration with continuo band Ruckus debuted at #1 on the iTunes classical charts and #2 on the Billboard classical charts, and was called “blindingly impressive...a fizzing, daring display of personality and imagination” by The New York Times.

Emi is currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School, the Bach Virtuosi Festival, and has taught on the faculty of the University of Buffalo. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York. Visit Emi’s web site >

Musicians

Guy Fishman, Leader/Cello Emi Ferguson, Flute Aisslinn Nosky, Violin Renee Hemsing, Viola Ian Watson, Harpsichord

Guy Fishman is principal cellist of the Handel and Haydn Society and is in demand as an early music specialist in north America and Europe. He has performed with Tafelmusik, Les Violons du Roi, Seraphic Fire, Arcadia Players, Connecticut Early Music Festival, Querelle des Bouffons, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Boston Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, Emmanuel Music, the Boston Museum Trio, Boulder Bach Festival, and El Mundo, among others.
In addition to concert appearances, Guy has been presented in recital with Dawn Upshaw, Mark Peskanov, Eliot Fisk, Richard Eggar, Lara St. John, Gil Kalish, Kim Kashkashian, the Eybler Quartet, the Consone Quartet, and Natalie Merchant. His playing has been praised as “plangent” by The Boston Globe, “electrifying” by The New York Times, and “beautiful....noble” by the Boston Herald, and “dazzling” by the Portland Press Herald. The Boston Musical Intelligencer related having “…heard greater depth in [Haydn concerto] than I have in quite some time.”
Guy Fishman is a Bach Akademie Charlotte Artistic Leader.
Hailed by critics for her “tonal bloom” and “hauntingly beautiful performances,” English-American performer and composer Emi Ferguson stretches the boundaries of what is expected of modern-day musicians. Emi’s unique approach to the flute can be heard in performances that alternate between the Silver Flute, Historical Flutes, and Auxilary Flutes, playing repertoire that stretches from the Renaissance to today.

Emi is a 2023 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, and can be heard live in concerts and festivals around the world as a soloist and with groups including AMOC*, Ruckus, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Manhattan Chamber Players. Emi has been named the new music director of Camerata Pacifica Baroque in Southern California, dreaming up programs of and inspired by Baroque music for Californian concert goers. Emi was a featured performer alongside Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Simon, and James Taylor at the 10th Anniversary Memorial Ceremony of 9/11 at Ground Zero, where her performance of Amazing Grace was televised worldwide. Her performance that day is now part of the permanent collection at the 911 Museum.
Aisslinn Nosky was appointed Concertmaster of the Handel and Haydn Society in 2011. With a reputation for being one of the most dynamic and versatile violinists of her generation, Aisslinn is in great demand internationally as a director, soloist, and concertmaster. From 2016 to 2019, Aisslinn served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Niagara Symphony Orchestra.
She is currently Guest Artist in Residence with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and an artistic advisor for the Portland Baroque Orchestra. Aisslinn is also a member of I FURIOSI Baroque Ensemble. For twenty years, this innovative Canadian ensemble presented its own edgy and inventive concert series in Toronto and toured Europe and North America, turning new audiences on to Baroque music.
With the Eybler Quartet, Aisslinn explores repertoire from the firstcentury of the string quartet literature on period instruments. From2005 through 2016, Aisslinn was a member of Tafelmusik Baroque bOrchestra. An avid educator, she serves on the faculty of EQ: Evolution of the String Quartet, at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
Aisslinn is a Bach Akademie Charlotte Artistic Leader.
Dr. Renée Hemsing, a native of Los Alamos, New Mexico, earned her Doctorate of Musical Arts in violin performance at the University of Colorado, where her quartet (Ajax Quartet) was also graduate Quartet-in-Residence with the Takacs Quartet from 2017-2019. She earned her Masters at the University of North Texas in modern violin under Emanuel Borok (former concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony & Boston Pops), and in baroque violin under Cynthia Roberts (Juilliard), and her Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from the University of New Mexico under renowned Brazilian soloist Dr. Cármelo de los Santos.
In addition to her primary instructors, Renée studied with Brandon Chui, baroque violist of Tafelmusik, violinists Paul Kantor and David Halen at the Aspen Music Festival, and others at the Schlern International Music Festival in the Italian Alps. In her young career, she has enjoyed performing as a soloist, in her quartet, and orchestrally in ensembles throughout the US and abroad. Most recently, she has appeared as guest principal violist of the Handel & Haydn Society. Renée has been featured in master classes with such quartets as the Takacs Quartet, Pacifica Quartet, Jupiter Quartet, Escher Quartet, American Quartet, and has been featured as a soloist in master classes including Augustine Hadelich, Don Weilerstein, Sylvia Rosenberg, Vadim Gluzman, Matt Albert, Stephen Rose, Peter Otto, and more. In Spring 2014, Renée was featured on the cover of Symphony Magazine.
Ian Watson is a multi-talented musician, acclaimed in numerous performances as an operatic and symphonic conductor, period-instrument specialist and virtuoso harpsichordist, organist and pianist. In September 2016, he was appointed Associate Conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston.
Ian Watson has appeared as soloist or conductor with the London Symphony, London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, Scottish Chamber, English Chamber, Polish Chamber, Irish Chamber and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestras, Bremen Philharmonic, Rhein-Main Symphony Orchestra, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Handel and Haydn Society, English Baroque Soloists, and The Sixteen amongst many others. He was invited to be the assistant conductor, organ and harpsichord soloist and continuo player for Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, performing all Bach’s cantatas on the correct liturgical day in places where Bach lived and worked. He has also been featured on more than 200 recordings and film soundtracks including Amadeus, Polanski’s Death and the Maiden, Restoration, Cry the Beloved Country, Voices from a Locked Room, and BBC‘s David Copperfield.