Baroque Family Songbook

Program

Some families gather around the barbecue, others around the telly. In this family, it’s the harpsichord. Switzerland-based tenor Jacob returns to Australia and, alongside his Launceston-raised mum Liz, shares the songs that filled their Melbourne home in the early 2000s. To absolutely no one’s surprise, they’re all baroque.

HENRY PURCELL (1659-1695)
Music for a while from Oedipus 1692 (Z. 583)
Round O Z.T68
Evening hymn Z. 193

FRANCESCO DURANTE (1684-1755)
Vergin tutto amor

DOMENICO SCARLATTI (1685-1757)
Sonata in A Minor K 175

GIULIO CACCINI (1551-1618)
Amarilli mia Bella from Le Nuove Musiche

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort
G major prelude and fugue
Bist du bei mir

About the artists

Jacob Lawrence

Since moving to Basel to study at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, tenor Jacob Lawrence has become one of Europe’s most sought-after and versatile early music practitioners, performing frequently with groups such as Les Arts Florissants, Vox Luminis, Ensemble Correspondances, and Profeti della Quinta, as well as Pinchgut Opera in Australia. Jacob can be found on many of Europe’s biggest stages in opera, oratorio, and concert, or accompanying his own singing on the lira da braccio in music of the Italian Renaissance. Recent performances have taken Jacob to the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Chateau de Versailles, the Teatro Real de Madrid, and Wigmore Hall, London.

Elizabeth Anderson

Elizabeth Anderson has performed with the Adelaide, Melbourne, Queensland and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras the Sydney Opera House Orchestra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Local solo appearances have included the Adelaide Festival, Castlemaine State Festival, Melbourne International Festival, MONA FOMA, Port Fairy Spring Music Festival. In Europe, festival appearances have included Carouge Spring (Switzerland), City of London, Dublin Early Music, Sorø International Music Festival (Denmark), Philharmonia Baltica (Gdansk, Poland). As Assistant Artistic Director of the Australian Chamber Choir, Elizabeth features this year in an SBS documentary about her discovery and performances of a lost cantata by Vivaldi’s orphan protégé, Agatha.

When Jacob is in Australia, he and Elizabeth can both be found singing at the Scots’ church Melbourne, where his father Douglas Lawrence has been director of Music since 1984. The three of them have given numerous concerts around Australia and Europe and released several CDs on the Move label.