Mercury Baroque

On Friday afternoon, I had the privilege of meeting my old boss, Lydia, for lunch. I interned for her in public relations in the summer of 2001 at the Houston Symphony. Lydia now does PR independently, and one of her clients is Mercury Baroque, Houston's first (I think) period instrument baroque orchestra. Luckily enough that day some members of the group were promoting a concert this weekend on the local public radio station, KUHF. Jonathan Godfrey and Oleg Sulyga played violin, Barret Sills played cello, and Bill Averill played harpsichord for Dean Dalton's program, The Front Row. Mercury Baroque's music director, Antoine Plante, also answered questions about the music. The station has a really nice space for live radio performances, and it was fun to watch and listen to some Italian trio sonatas, one based on La Folia by Vivaldi and another by Tartini. The music will be performed as part of a program in the MFAH's exhibit on Pompeo Batoni. Thus the progam consists of music that the patrons of this 18th-century Italian artist probably listened to at that time. While it was great fun to observe a live radio broadcast, it would be even cooler to actually go to the performance tomorrow (Sunday) at 2 pm at the museum and hear the music among the paintings. It's gorgeous music played on authentic instruments by excellent musicians in a beautiful location, what more could you ask for? Oh yeah, and they're fun people, too.