Gabriela Guadalajara is perhaps NYC’s only luthier who works exclusively on period instruments. In a brilliantly devised partnership, she is helping bring Baroque instrument-making techniques to Latin America.

Brace yourself for tri-cornered hats and fife-and-drum renditions of ‘Yankee Doodle.’ Nostalgia aside, America250 is an opportunity to reflect on the broader trajectories of our musical heritage. We lose something profound if this moment is nothing more than a self-congratulatory celebration.

Great artists express their identities through their art, yet many artists are forced to live in a society that does not accept their true identity. ‘Passing Fancy: Beauty in a Moment of Chaos,’ from Sonnambula, an ensemble of violins, viols, and keyboard, explores works by a range of such societal outcasts from the 16th and 17th centuries.

New recordings of Bach’s ‘Saint Matthew Passion’ continue to come at us apace. The latest, from the Bay Area’s Cantata Collective, is highlighted by stellar vocal soloists and by Nicholas McGegan’s emotionally subtle conducting.