Early Music Missouri’s 2025 holiday concert features music by three of the most renowned composers of the Baroque era. Arcangelo Corelli’s famous Christmas Concerto will be bracketed by George Frideric Handel’s Gloria for solo soprano and Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria for soloists, choir and a string ensemble with solo Baroque oboe and Baroque trumpet. This concert of High Baroque masterpieces will offer an entertaining and inspiring musical start to the holiday season.
The concert will take place on December 7 at 3:00 PM at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 110 North Warson Road in Ladue, MO. The free off-street parking, available immediately adjacent to the church, includes multiple handicapped spots. The performance space is accessible for those with special mobility needs. Admission to the concert is $20 (cash, card, or check) with special discounts for students.
Handel composed his Gloria in his twenties, treating the text not as a mass movement but as a solo cantata. Early Music Missouri regular Arianna Aerie will be the featured soprano soloist, supported by Baroque violinists Samuel Breene and Celina Boldrey. Following Handel’s Gloria, Sam will lead the Early Music Missouri Chamber Orchestra in a period-instrument performance of Arcangelo Corelli’s popular concerto grosso “Fatto per la Notte di Natale,” composed for a Christmas Eve performance. The concert concludes with Antonio Vivaldi’s stirring Gloria, composed originally for his ensemble at Venice’s Ospedale della Pietà. Sopranos Samantha Arten and Arianna Aerie and alto Olivia Roland, all well-known to Early Music Missouri’s audience, will feature as soloists for Vivaldi’s Gloria. Oboist Claire Workinger and Baroque trumpeter Charles Workinger will join the ensemble for this piece as featured soloists.
Early Music Missouri is the region’s foremost promoter and presenter of Early Music concerts. Its performances feature Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque repertoire performed on period instruments by expert performers from the region and nation.
