For sixty years, Museum Concerts of Rhode Island, all-volunteer organization, has connected hundreds of local and regional early music virtuosos with thousands of appreciative audience members – all at affordable ticket prices.
In 1966, Museum Concerts’ founders, Mary Sadovnikoff and Alison Fowle, channeled their passion for early music into historically informed concerts at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. Since then, Museum Concerts has produced hundreds of affordable performances in ever-larger venues for an ever-growing audience. With no paid administrative staff, the organization supports instrumentalists and vocalists dedicated to performing music from the Renaissance through the Baroque with passion and expertise. And local audiences are noticing.
Museum Concerts has provided paid performance opportunities for hundreds of musicians performing on period instruments. Dedicated to bringing this music to as wide an audience as possible, the organization offers general admission tickets at half the price of tickets to similar performances in Boston or New York, deeply discounted tickets to students and those who are struggling financially, and complimentary tickets to schoolchildren studying classical music performance.
Thanks to recent additional support from enthusiastic patrons, Museum Concerts has increased the number, broadened the scope, and enhanced the quality of its performances. This additional funding, combined with the extensive international contacts of Museum Concerts’ president, L. Frederick Jodry (who retired in 2025 after 33 years as Brown University’s director of choral activities), has enabled the organization to add nationally and internationally known performers to the concert schedule at the same low ticket prices.
Yet Museum Concerts still remains a strong supporter of local musicians, and will present three concerts this season by the increasingly recognized Providence Baroque Orchestra. The orchestra consists primarily of local early music instrumentalists whose performances now reach audiences beyond Rhode Island.
Museum Concerts, Rhode Island’s premier early music concert series, opens its 60th anniversary season on October 11 with the Providence Baroque Orchestra, led by Daniel Lee, performing works by Corelli, Handel, and Vivaldi. The Corelli and Handel pieces showcase the concerto grosso. Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater features rising countertenor Sam Higgins, a native of Massachusetts, currently completing his Master’s Degree at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
“Sam Higgin’s beautifully ethereal tone was heard at it loveliest” — Parterre Box
Daniel Lee “Fleet fingered, passionate… soulful performance.” — The New York Times
Museum Concerts of Rhode Island
2026‒2027 60th Season
All concerts performed in Providence, RI
Sunday, October 11, 3:30 pm
Providence Baroque Orchestra: Music of Corelli, Handel & Vivaldi
with Sam Higgins, countertenor
Central Congregational Church, 296 Angell Street
Sunday, November 15, 3:30 pm
A Golden Wire: Music of 17th Century England
Strings, Harp, and Organ
First Unitarian Church, One Benevolent Street
Sunday, February 14, 3:30 pm
Schola Cantorum of Boston & Providence Baroque: Henry Purcell – Dido and Aeneas
St. Martin’s Church, 50 Orchard Street
Sunday, March 21, 3:30 pm
Peter Sykes & Robert Mealy: J.S. Bach & Couperin
Violin and Harpsichord
St. Martin’s Church, 50 Orchard Street
Sunday, April 18, 3:30 pm
House of Time: Father, Son, & Godfather – J.S. Bach, C.P. Bach & G.P. Teleman
Oboe, Violin, Cello and Harpsichord
St. Martin’s Church, 50 Orchard Street
Sunday, May 2, 3:30 pm
Providence Baroque Orchestra & Yale Schola Cantormum: Handel Coronation Anthems
Grace Episcopal Church, 300 Westminster Street
