Les Agréments de musique performs on July 29

Les Agréments de musique returns to Westminster Choir College of Rider University to perform a concert titled “Musiques pour la Chambre du Roy” on Wednesday, July 29 at 7:30 p.m. in Bristol Chapel on the Westminster campus in Princeton. The performance will feature John Burkhalter, recorders; and Minju Lee, harpsichord; with special guest Shelia Fernekes, recorders. The performance is free and open to the public.

The program will highlight works by French composers, including Jean-Baptiste Lully, Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, Jean Baptiste Loeillet de Gant, Jacques Duphly, Charles Dieupart, Jean Hotteterre and Michel Farinel.

Les Agréments de musique was founded by Minju Lee and John Burkhalter to survey the grandeur and intimacy of the musical riches associated with the courts of Louis XIII, his son and heir Louis XIV and in turn his great grandson Louis XV. The ensemble specializes exclusively in the field of French Baroque music and performs at the Paris Opera/Versailles pitch of A392 a whole step lower than today's more common A440. The music heard during the course of Les Agréments programs is a celebration of French Baroque music in its different forms, including formal suites and sonatas and "character pieces.”  French culture has always been very concerned with beauty in all of its manifestations and what dictates above everything else is le bon gout or the "good taste.”

John Burkhalter is co-artistic director, along with Donovan Klotzbeacher, of The Practitioners of Musick, which specializes in music of the late-Colonial and early-Federal periods in America. He performs with Le Triomphe de l'amour, Brandywine Baroque, the Princeton University early music group Musica Alta and Les Agréments de musique.  A board member of the Princeton Recorder Society, he also serves on the board of the Guild for Early Music. He regularly performs in various regional English country dance bands, in association most notably with the Germantown Colonial Assembly of Philadelphia and New York City's 92nd Street Y.

Minju Lee, has many years of experience teaching harpsichord music, theory and basso continuo in the Korea National University of Art, Hanyang University and elsewhere. Ms. Lee has performed widely in Korea and in the United States. Recent appearances have been with the early music groups Zorzal, The Practitioners of Musick, La Fiocco, Le Triomphe de l'amour and the ensemble, co-founded with John Burkhalter, Les Agréments de musique.

Sheila Fernekes, a graduate of Rutgers University, regularly performs with various music ensembles at such venues as the Princeton University Art Museum, The Princeton Festival, The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers and Princeton University Opera.  A past president of the Princeton Recorder Society and a former board member of the National American Recorder Society, she continues to be active in educational projects that bring children and other students into the world of early music. 

For more information, contact the box office at 609-921-2663 or follow this link.