Desert Baroque
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Desert Baroque is sponsored by the Collaborative Arts and Culture Foundation. Donations to Desert Baroque are tax exempt under IRS Code 501(c)(3).
The Baroque Era in a Modern Age
Friday March 31, 2023, 7pm
The Artists Center at the Galen, 72567 Hwy 111, Palm Desert, California
The Opsahl/Pritchard Duo
Two of Los Angeles’ finest players will present “La selva di varii passaggi:” music for Cornetto, Recorder and Keyboards from Early
Modern Italy, by Frescobaldi, Gabrieli, Guami and more.
Alex Opsahl, cornetto and recorder
Ian Pritchard, keyboards
Performers’ profiles
Alex Opsahl studied recorder with Peter Holtslag and Daniel Bruggen at the Royal Academy of Music, and cornetto with Bruce Dickey at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. While still a student, she received 1st Prize in the 2003 Moeck Solo Recorder competition, the 2001 and 2003 RAM Early Music Prize, and the 2003 Hilda Anderson Dean Award.
Alex has performed with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under Ton Koopman, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Emmanuele Haim, Boston Early Music Festival, I Fagiolini, Capella Barocca di Mexico, Carmel Bach Festival, Piffaro, Apollo's Fire, Portland Baroque Orchestra, and the Green Mountain Project. She performed in Il Ritorno d’Ulisse at the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Altenmusik in 2017, and filmed L’Incoronazione di Poppea with both Oslo Opera and Glyndebourne Opera.
She recorded Vivaldi’s Concerto in C Minor, RV 441, with the Norwegian period orchestra Barokkanerne, and recently recorded the JD Berlin cornetto concerto with the Norwegian Baroque Orchestra.
Alex is a founding member of both Tesserae and Dark Horse Consort.
Ian Pritchard, harpsichordist, organist, and musicologist, is a specialist in early music and historical keyboard practices. As a continuo player he has performed with the Academy of Ancient Music, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Florilegium, with which he has toured in Europe and in South America. As a chamber musician, Dr. Pritchard has collaborated with Monica Huggett, Elizabeth Blumenstock, Elizabeth Wallfisch and Rachel Podger, and has performed under Christopher Hogwood, Christophe Rousset, Emanuelle Haïm, Nicholas McGeegan, and Laurence Cummings. He has won prizes in the Broadwood Harpsichord Competition, London (first prize), the P. Bernardi Competition in Bologna, and in the Bruges Competition.
Dr. Pritchard began playing the harpsichord at the age of 13, beginning studies in his native Los Angeles with Susanne Shapiro. Earning his Bachelor’s in Music from the Oberlin Conservatory, Ohio in 1999 (where he studied with Lisa Goode Crawford), he moved to Europe in 2000. From 2000-2002 he studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London (where he studied with John Toll, Laurence Cummings, and James Johnstone), earning the prestigious DipRam award. In 2003-2004, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Italy, where he studied with Liuwe Tamminga and Andrea Marcon, and conducted research on early Italian keyboard music. In 2018, he earned his PhD in musicology from the University of Southern California.
As a musicologist, Dr. Pritchard’s interests include keyboard music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque, improvisation, notation, compositional process, and performance practice. He is currently a full-time faculty member at the Colburn School Conservatory of Music, and in 2015 was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.