REBEL Baroque Ensemble - October 3, 2018
imagination and intensity STAR TRIBUNE, St. Paul
astonishingly vital music-making THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
A state of the art early music ensemble THE BOSTON GLOBE
effortless, self-assured, gripping playing TOCCATA MAGAZINE, Germany
breathtakingly expressive... a feast for the ear DE TUBANTIA (Enschede, The Netherlands)
The world of baroque music is a volatile, action-packed place, rife with subversive ideas and hard-driving players… one of the best groups is REBEL, whose playing— fiery, alive and beautifully controlled— made the evening. THE WASHINGTON POST
[REBEL’s] distinctive, very active approach to this music was readily apparent... this flamboyant, interventionist style emboldened all the music on the program with accent and color. Add utterly fearless, risk-everything playing to the mix... and you get astonishingly vital music-making. THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
Hailed by the New York Times as “Sophisticated and Beguiling” and praised by the Los Angeles Times for their “astonishingly vital music-making," the award-winning, New York-based ensemble, REBEL (pronounced “Re-BEL”) is one of North America’s top-tier ensembles specializing in 17th- & 18th-century repertoire performed on period instruments.
Named after the innovative French Baroque composer Jean-Féry Rebel (1666-1747), REBEL was formed in The Netherlands in 1991; that same year the ensemble took first prize in the Van Wassenaer International Competition in Utrecht and gave their critically-acclaimed American début in New York City in 1992. Since then the ensemble has garnered an impressive international reputation, enchanting diverse audiences with their unique style and their virtuosic, highly expressive and provocative approach to the baroque and classical repertoire. The core formation of two violins, recorder/traverso, cello/ viola da gamba and harpsichord/ organ/ fortepiano expands with additional strings, winds, brass, theorbo and vocalists, as needed.
Arguably the most aired American baroque ensemble in the U.S. today, REBEL is regularly featured on the nationally syndicated shows Performance Today and Sunday Baroque, and has appeared several times on MPR’s St. Paul Sunday. REBEL remains the only period instrument ensemble ever to have been awarded an artists’ residency at National Public Radio, has been featured on BBC’s Radio 3 and has recorded over twenty CDs on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, Dorian, Sono Luminus, ATMA, Hänssler Classic and Bridge Records.
Highlights of the 2017-’18 season include engagements in San Antonio, TX, Joplin, MO, Tulsa, OK, Pittsburgh, PA, Columbus OH and Concord, NH, and collaborations with soprano Yulia Van Doren in November 2017, and baroque dancers Thomas Baird and Paige Whitley-Bauguess in March 2018
More information may be found at https://www.rebelbaroque.com