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RVA Baroque is Richmond, Virginia’s period instrument ensemble. The group began performing in 2009 under the name Jefferson Baroque. In our first public performance, four friends who enjoyed playing old music on old instruments gave a concert for employees of a dental practice. Since then, the ensemble has grown to over 20 musicians. Sev
RVA Baroque is Richmond, Virginia’s period instrument ensemble. The group began performing in 2009 under the name Jefferson Baroque. In our first public performance, four friends who enjoyed playing old music on old instruments gave a concert for employees of a dental practice. Since then, the ensemble has grown to over 20 musicians. Several members enjoy prominence in the US and international early music scene.
The group is increasingly in demand, performing in prestigious area series such as Music at Grace & Holy Trinity, Grace Covenant August Musicales, St. Benedict Lenten Concerts, and the Richmond Public Library Gellman Room Recitals. RVA Baroque has performed at the Richmond Friends of the Library annual meeting and in an exploration of the roots of Bluegrass at Longwood University and the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. A mainstay of Classical Revolution RVA, the group has given modern-day premieres of half a dozen chamber works from French manuscripts and periodicals. The group has performed live several times on WCVE/VPM.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, RVA Baroque has given masked, socially distanced live concerts at the Branch Museum of Architecture and Design and Westminster Canterbury Senior Living, as well as numerous privately hosted events. The Richmond Public Library chose RVA Baroque to re-start their 2020-2021 concert series with a program livestreamed from the Gellman Room.
RVA Baroque regularly teams up with local arts organizations such as the Oratorio Society of Richmond, the Colonial Dance Club of Richmond, the Greater Richmond Concert Chorale, the Latin Ballet of Virginia, Quill Theatre, and Capitol Opera Richmond. In partnership with several of these organizations, RVA Baroque performed in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in 2018 and premiered a full-length staged opera, MINERVA Times Change in 2019. The ensemble is creating a new original opera to debut in 2021.
RVA Baroque became a 501(3) non-profit organization in 2020.
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What is RVA Baroque’s “HIP” approach to early music?
RVA Baroque is dedicated to promoting literacy in historically informed performance practice among musicians and audiences.
Historically informed performance (HIP) refers to the presentation of music from before ca. 1800 using instruments and techniques that would have been familiar to the music’s original creators. The HIP approach is learned through a combination of teaching by experts and experimentation by performers.
HIP is valuable because it frees musicians from conventions and stereotypes associated with “classical” music traditions. It features improvisation, gesture, and a focus on the emotional content of the music above literal reading of scores. The result is more direct communication between the musicians in the moment of performance and between the musicians and the audience.
At this time, when harsh as well as uplifting aspects of the past are vividly present, HIP music-making can do more than celebrate already-beloved musical traditions. RVA Baroque is also recovering the music of people and peoples that were silenced, overshadowed or co-opted over the centuries. Our active research in this area has already yielded discoveries that delight and enlighten performers and audiences alike.
RVA Baroque’s core performers include specialists and training orchestral musicians in HIP techniques. However, in our commitment to being a community institution, we also embrace non-professional musicians from diverse backgrounds, and we intend to promote some students from our education programs into the core group. This makes RVA Baroque different from other Virginia-based HIP ensembles that are staffed exclusively with degreed specialists.
Christine Anderson, Arden Clark, Zsuzsanna Emodi, Hope Armstrong-Erb, Bob Gallagher, Sarah Huebsch-Schilling, Christina Jennings, Chris Johnston, Victoria Kinney, Elaine Kiziah, Joel Kumro, Brady Lanier, Becca Longhenry, Michelle Matts, Andrew McEvoy, Blake Morris, Anne O'Byrne, Kelsey Schilling, Katharine Moore-Tibbetts, Ryan Tibbetts, Sarah Wendt, Gary White, Erin Wind, Keydron Dunn,
Name Position Affiliation
Name Position Affiliation
Thank you for being a part of RVA Baroque and adding to our music making with your beautiful flute playing. I didn’t know Cindy for very long and in that short time found her to be a person with a generous heart, kind countenance, and greatly talented. She will be missed both musically and personally. Godspeed friend. - Victoria Kinney
Thank you for being a part of RVA Baroque and adding to our music making with your beautiful flute playing. I didn’t know Cindy for very long and in that short time found her to be a person with a generous heart, kind countenance, and greatly talented. She will be missed both musically and personally. Godspeed friend. - Victoria Kinney
I immediately felt welcomed by Cindy when I joined the band and we hit it off as “team flute” (no doubt both of us having a scientific background helped!). My favorite part about playing with Cindy was that we figured out how to solve fingering, intonation, etc. problems together. As soon as one of us would discover a trick and teach it to the other, we could overcome any technical challenge- even with the myriad G# and D# in the Esurientes form the Bach Magnificat or all the F naturals in the Vivaldi double concerto. I wish that we could have played more together! - Katharine Moore-Tibbetts
What a lovely person and amazing talent. - Jenna Anderson
Cindy played flute with grace - and a twinkle in her eye! Her curiosity, joy, and generosity, were obvious from our first meeting during rehearsals for a concert at Richmond Public Library. We found we shared a lot of common ground - most especially our love for the Baroque music we were both so happy to be performing with Jefferson Baroque. We discovered we had overlapped in the music scene in the north of England for a few years. We laughed together at reminisces from that other time and place, while striving to bring beauty and honesty to the music we were playing and singing that week.
Some people are easy to be friends with, and my life is better for having known Cindy, and her wonderful playing. - Anne O’Byrne
Several times in my life, I've had the pleasure of working with fine musicians who were also scientists. At the risk of overgeneralizing, I'd say they share an approach to music based on problem solving. This was certainly true of Cindy, and it produced impressive results. She joined our ensemble as the result of a challenge. Around the time Blake, Elaine and I were preparing for our first period-instrument gigs, I met Cindy and we played duets on modern instruments. She was intrigued by the idea of a local baroque ensemble, and I told her we'd love to have her join once she got hold of and learned to play baroque flute. I'd made the same offer to several modern-instrument players before, and they said they'd give it a try but I never heard back from them. A month or two after our duet afternoon, Cindy sent me an email saying she had her flauto traverso and was ready to join the band. From the start, her sound on that most difficult of early wind instruments was glorious, with the magic combination of pastel softness wrapped around an ever-so-slightly nasal core that distinguishes the best players. For one of our early gigs, we were learning Telemann's Paris Quartet #6 in e-minor, and Cindy faced a technical challenge. The piece features a gazillion d-sharps, which are especially hard to play in tune on the traverso. At the first rehearsal, she told us the piece was a nightmare of intonation risks, but she insisted we not drop it from the program. By the next rehearsal, she'd adjusted her technique and mastered the piece. In the performance, her d-sharps were not just pure, they gave the final chaconne a sense of drama that brought the concert to a thrilling close. Cindy's scientific precision was always at the service of emotional connection with her fellow musicians and the audience. In her last public appearance, at the Gellman Room in January 2020, she duetted with Brady on "Le rossignol en amour," Francois Couperin's musical depiction of a nightingale in love. The composer's notation in the score calls for a trill in the flute part to begin slowly and increase in speed "by imperceptible gradations." Cindy achieved a starting tempo and a rate of acceleration so graceful and natural-sounding that the imaginary bird became momentarily alive and deeply moving in its plight. Cindy blessed us all too briefly with her immense talent, keen mind, and big heart. - Raphael Seligmann
RVA Baroque is dedicated to protecting its musicians, organizational partners, and the public during the coronavirus pandemic while continuing to offer meaningful programs of high artistic quality.
In practice, this means we follow CDC and state-level guidelines on mask wearing, social distancing, hand washing, cleaning of surfaces, tempe
RVA Baroque is dedicated to protecting its musicians, organizational partners, and the public during the coronavirus pandemic while continuing to offer meaningful programs of high artistic quality.
In practice, this means we follow CDC and state-level guidelines on mask wearing, social distancing, hand washing, cleaning of surfaces, temperature monitoring, and quarantining if exposed. Where possible, rehearsals and performances are held in well-ventilated and open spaces. Although we do not require our musicians to be vaccinated, we do strongly encourage this option for the protection of our performers and members.
In any situation where the goals of protection and performance conflict, we unhesitatingly choose protection to include policies of locations over the RVA Baroque policy where the location policy is more stringent. No project goes forward unless the conditions stated above are met and the performers signify that they are comfortable with the safety precautions proposed.
RVA Baroque will revisit standards and may modify them in line with guidance from the CDC and public health authorities as appropriate. We will communicate any changes on this page. If you have any questions or comments about our commitment to safe working conditions, please contact us at rvabaroque@gmail.com.
Learn more about our upcoming events, performances and more!