Saturday, October 24, 2025, 4:00 pm
First Parish Church, Sudbury, MA
Sunday, October 25, 2025, 4:00 pm
Old South Church, Boston, MA
and live-streamed at www.oldpostroad.org
In-person Audience Tickets $10-$55, kids come free with an adult
Virtual Audience Tickets: $35 individual, $70 family, $10 students
Two-time winner of the Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society, Musicians of the Old Post Road begins its 38th season with Playing it Forward, a program exploring creative lineages from teachers to students across generations. Performances will be presented on October 24 at 4 pm at First Parish Church in Sudbury and October 25 at 4 pm at Old South Church in Boston and online. The weekend marks the opening of the ensemble’s “Convergence” season, inviting audiences on an adventure to explore musical lineages and the merging of cultures and styles across two centuries, with the ensemble’s signature blend of musical “rediscoveries” in dialogue with beloved Baroque and Classical works.
Playing it Forward opens with works by John Christopher Smith, a student of Handel’s as well as his secretary, treasurer, and principal copyist. A fine composer in his own right, Smith wrote operas, oratorios and instrumental works, including The Fairies, an opera based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This program will include the overture and the aria “You spotted Snakes,” from this enchanting work. Handel’s teacher, Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, was an organist who primarily composed organ works and sacred choral music, only a fraction of which has survived. The program will include his only surviving instrumental ensemble work, a vivacious trio sonata for flute, cello, and continuo.
Johann Sebastian Bach had many gifted students, among them Johann Philip Kirnberger and Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. Both composers displayed a commitment to continuing the contrapuntal Baroque style championed by their teacher. Included in the program are a trio sonata by Kirnberger and a quartet by Goldberg that each show their mastery and furtherance of Baroque counterpoint while incorporating the evolving expressive qualities of the late Baroque aesthetic. Kirnberger, in turn, imparted his knowledge to his student, the Princess of Prussia, Anna Amalia. Her compositions also incorporated the expressive language of the emerging pre-classical “sensitive” style as evidenced in the dramatic twists and turns in her Flute Sonata in F Major which will be heard on this program.
The remaining works center around the lineage of Joseph Haydn. Among Haydn’s teachers was Nicola Porpora, a prominent composer and singing teacher from whom Haydn claimed to have learned “the true fundamentals of composition.” Marianna Martines was a student of both Porpora and Haydn, with whom she studied singing, piano, and composition. Our program includes the aria Lusingato dalla speme (Flattered by hopes) by Porpora from his opera Polifemo, and the aria Se del fiume altera l’onda (The river’s surging waters) by Martines.
Musicians for these performances, all of whom will play on period instruments, include flutist Suzanne Stumpf, violinists Sarah Darling and Jesse Irons, violist Marcia Cassidy, cellist Daniel Ryan, and harpsichordist Nicola Canzano. The ensemble will be joined by the Grammy-nominated soprano Corrine Byrne. The Sudbury program is supported, in part, by the Sudbury Cultural Council and is presented in collaboration with the Sudbury Historical Society. (members receive a $10 discount on their ticket).
Single In-Person Tickets are $55 general admission, $50 seniors, $35 for under 35. Kids 18 and under are free with an adult. Day-Of-Concert Rush Tickets (students and EBT Card holders only) are $10, availability permitting.
Virtual single tickets and virtual subscriptions are also available. Virtual single ticket holders will be able to view the concert for three days after the livestream. Virtual subscribers will have continuous access until June 30, 2027.
For more information, visit www.oldpostroad.org, email musicians@oldpostroad.org, or call 781-466-6694.
ABOUT MUSICIANS OF THE OLD POST ROAD
Musicians of the Old Post Road takes its name from its acclaimed concert series that brings period instrument performances of music of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries to beautiful historic buildings along New England’s fabled Old Post Road, the first thoroughfare to connect Boston and New York City in the late 17th century.
Winner of the 1998 and 2023 Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society, Musicians of the Old Post Road has also received programming awards from Early Music America, Chamber Music America and the US-Mexico Fund for Culture. The ensemble has toured in Germany, Austria, and Mexico, and has appeared at festivals and on concert series in the US, including the Indianapolis Early Music Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival Concert Series, the Castle Hill Festival, the Artists Series at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and the Connecticut Early Music Festival. The ensemble has held a residency at Dartmouth College and was featured on WCVB television’s “Chronicle” program and 99.5 All Classical radio’s “Live from Fraser” program.
The ensemble’s discography includes seven recordings that have each been praised in the US and abroad. They include: The Virtuoso Double Bass (Titanic, 1994), Trios and Scottish Song Settings of J. N. Hummel (Meridian, 1999), Galant with an Attitude: Music of Juan and José Pla (Meridian, 2000), Quartets of Telemann and Bodinus (Meridian, 2004), Feliz Navidad: Christmas from Spain and New Spain (Meridian, 2008), Roman Handel (Centaur, 2013), and Earthly Baroque (Centaur, 2017), and its most recent CD, Into the Light (OPR Recordings, 2026).
