Strawberry Fields
Music of G.F Handel and Ignatius Sancho
About Me.
While George Frideric Handel and Ignatius Sancho never met each other, they inhabited the same world, and shared one thing for certain: the transcendent joy that comes from a life of music and dance with good company. And if there is one thing that encapsulates the joy of togetherness in 18th-century England it was the English Country Dance. Sweating, laughing, spinning, holding hands…. Propelled onwards by the unrelenting groove of the music.
PROGRAM
Ignatius Sancho
Lady Mary Montagu's Reel - Culford Heath Camp - Ruffs and Rhees
from Twelve Country Dances for the Year 1779
Trio in G, op. 5, #4
Tempo Ordinario - Allegro - Passacaille - Gigue
G.F. Handel
Ignatius Sancho
Sweetest Bard - Air - Bushy Park - Lord Dalkeith’s Reel
Trio in E Minor, op. 5 #3
Andante Larghetto - Allegro - Sarabande - Allemande - Rondeau - Gavotte
Mi Palpita il Cor, HWV132c
G.F. Handel
Ignatius Sancho
Thou Soft Flowing Avon - Lindrindod Lasses - Anacreonic Ode - The Royal Bishop - The Complaint - Strawberries and Cream
Trio in D major, op. 5 #2
Largo - Adagio - Allegro - Musette - Allegro - Musette - Marche - Gavotte
Yet Can I Hear That Dulcet Lay (from The Choice of Hercules)
G.F. Handel
Ignatius Sancho
Mungo's Delight - Duchess of Devonshire's Reel - Trip to Dillington - All of One Mind - Friendship Source of Joy
About
My name is Alexa Young
Ignatius Sancho was a remarkable member of 18th-century London and was a pivotal figure in the abolition movement in England. He is one of the first Black musicians to publish their compositions and was likely the first British African to vote. He was born on a slave ship en route from Africa to the Caribbean in 1729, and was brought to England as an enslaved person when he was two years old. In Greenwich, England, he was given to three young girls, who decided to give the child the surname of Sancho (after the Cervantes character). Ignatius’ luck began to change upon meeting a family friend, the Duke of Montagu, who fostered Ignatius’ education and became his leading advocate. Ignatius eventually escaped his enslavement and was supported by the Montagu family, from whom he received a modest inheritance. This allowed him to support himself and pursue his dream of becoming an actor. Following a brief acting career, he opened a grocery and oil supply business in Westminster where he worked and created community until his death. Ignatius began to be known in wider circles when, in 1766, correspondence between himself and the popular novelist Laurence Sterne was published.
Featured Artists
Flute
Emi Ferguson
A 2023 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Emi Ferguson can be heard live in concerts and festivals with groups including AMOC*, Ruckus, the Handel and Haydn Society, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Manhattan Chamber Players, and as the music director of Camerata Pacifica Baroque. Her recordings celebrate her fascination with reinvigorating music and instruments of the past for the present. Her debut album, Amour Cruel, an indie-pop song cycle inspired by the music of the 17th-century French court, was released by Arezzo Music in September 2017, spending four weeks on the classical, classical crossover, and world music Billboard charts. Her 2019 album Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes, a collaboration with continuo band Ruckus, debuted at #1 on the iTunes classical charts and #2 on the Billboard classical charts, and was called “blindingly impressive ... a fizzing, daring display of personality and imagination” by The New York Times. Emi has been a featured performer at the Marlboro, Lucerne, Ojai, Lake Champlain, Bach Virtuosi, and June in Buffalo festivals, often premiering new works by composers of our time. Emi was a featured performer alongside Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Simon, and James Taylor at the 10th Anniversary Memorial Ceremony of 9/11 at Ground Zero, where her performance of Amazing Grace was televised worldwide. Her performance that day is now part of the permanent collection at the 911 Museum. Emi has spoken and performed at several TEDx events and has been featured on media outlets including the Discovery Channel, Amazon Prime, WQXR, and Vox talking about how music relates to our world today. As a radio host and programmer, Emi first started working with New York’s WQXR as a member of their Artist Propulsion Lab where she developed the podcast series "This Composer Is Sick" with Max Fine, exploring the impact of Syphilis on composers Franz Schubert, Bedřich Smetana, and Scott Joplin. She has recently been named one of four new hosts for WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase and is also developing new programming for the youngest radio listeners, introducing them to music through exciting stories about composers, following on the success of her book Iconic Composers, co-written with Nicholas Csicsko alongside illustrations by David Lee Csicsko, introducing music lovers of all ages to 50 incredible Western Classical composers from the past 1000 years. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York.
Countertenor
Reginald Mobley
GRAMMY-nominated American countertenor Reginald Mobley is globally renowned for his interpretation of baroque, classical and modern repertoire, and leads a prolific career on both sides of the Atlantic. An advocate for diversity in music and its programming, Reginald became the first ever Programming Consultant for the Handel & Haydn Society following several years of leading H&H in its community engaging Every Voice concerts. He holds the position of Visiting Artist for Diversity Outreach with Apollo’s Fire and has recently been appointed as Artistic Advisor at the Portland Baroque Orchestra. Reginald is also leading a research project in the UK funded by the AHRC to uncover music by composers from diverse backgrounds. Highlights of this and next seasons include a diverse range of recitals, with piano and continuo (Chicago, De Bijloke in Gent, Wigmore Hall, MA Festival in Bruges, Bayreuth Baroque festival) as well as regular appearances with specialized ensembles; in North America: the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Early Music Vancouver, Collegium San Diego, Agave, Seraphic Fire, Washington Bach Consort and, in Europe: Nederlandse Bachvereniging, Wiener Akademie, Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, and Bach Oxford Soloists. Reginald will also tour Australia with Bach Akademie in May 2025, and will perform Bach’s St John’s Passion with Orchestre de Chambre de Paris as part of the St Denis festival in June 2025. Reginald has been invited to sing with the US main orchestras including Pittsburgh Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Washington National Symphony, Philadelphia (both chamber and symphony), Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota, Montreal Symphony, Houston Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony and Orchestra of St Luke’s (at Carnegie Hall) for a repertoire comprising Handel’s Messiah, Carmina Burana and the Mozart Requiem. In Europe, he has appeared with Orchester Wiener Akademie, Balthasar Neumann Chor & Ensemble, Freiburger Barockorchester, I Barocchisti, Bach Society in Stuttgart, Holland Baroque Orchestra, Dutch Bach Society, Monteverdi Choir and English baroque soloists, as well as the City of Birmingham Orchestra and the Budapest Festival Orchestra for a series of performances as Ottone in L'incoronazione di Poppea. He has also engaged in projects together with the Academy of Ancient Music in Cambridge, singing the role of Disinganno in Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno and devising a new programme, Sons of England, supported by UKAHRC, which reflects his research under their umbrella, which toured England in May 2024. Reginald gave a Purcell, Handel and Sancho programme for his solo debut recital in Paris, which he repeated as part of the Bayreuth baroque opera festival in September 2023. His first solo CD with ALPHA Classics was released in June 2023 to coincide with a major series of concerts with pianist Baptiste Trotignon at the Aix-en-Provence and BBC Proms festivals. The CD has been recently awarded the Opus Klassik Awards in the ‘Classics without limits’ category. His second recording will take place this autumn: it gives tribute to English baroque music (Purcell, Dowland and Sancho) and its resonance in the more recent American repertoire (with theorb/guitar and violone/doublebass). In addition, Reginald features on several albums with the Monteverdi Choir, Agave Baroque and Stuttgart Bach Society.
Violin
Rachell Ellen Wong
Recipient of a prestigious 2020 Avery Fisher Career Grant – the only early music specialist in the respected program’s history – and Grand Prize winner of the inaugural Lillian and Maurice Barbash J.S. Bach Competition, violinist Rachell Ellen Wong is a rising star on both the historical performance and modern violin stages. She has performed in numerous countries spanning five continents. Her growing reputation as one of the top historical performers of her generation has resulted in appearances with renowned ensembles such as the Academy of Ancient Music, Jupiter Ensemble (led by lutenist Thomas Dunford), Bach Collegium Japan, Ruckus Early Music, Les Arts Florissants, and others. Equally accomplished on the modern violin, Rachell made her first public appearance with Philharmonia Northwest at age 11 and has since performed as a soloist with orchestras such as Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Panamá and the Seattle Symphony. Rachell made her conducting debut with the Seattle Symphony in 2020 when she directed Vivaldi’s Four Seasons from the violin. She also serves as concertmaster of Seattle Baroque Orchestra. Alongside acclaimed keyboardist David Belkovski, Rachell is co-founder of Twelfth Night, an ensemble structured to navigate all genres and instrumentation with ease, from the early baroque to the contemporary. Founded in 2021, Twelfth Night’s notable engagements include Music Before 1800, Reno’s Apex Concert Series, Arizona Early Music, and Chatham Baroque. Rachell is also a founding member of New Amsterdam Consort, a period-instrument string ensemble specializing in one-on-a-part performances of music from the Renaissance through the high Baroque. Highlights of Rachell’s 2022-2023 season include Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Auburn Symphony (WA), Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Richmond Symphony (IN), and recitals for UC Berkeley’s Cal Performances, Edinburgh Music Festival, and the Washington Bach Consort in DC. Notable past concerts include performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Costa Rica, Bottesini’s Gran Duo Concertante with the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Panama, recitals with world-renowned keyboardists Anton Nel, Byron Schenkman, and Alexander Weimann, and a sixteen-concert, four-city tour of New Zealand with the New Zealand String Quartet which included the New Zealand premiere of Alexander Ekman’s Cacti for on stage string quartet and ballet with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and a recital in Wellington, New Zealand featuring works by Bartok, Schubert and Beethoven. Rachell also regularly performs as Artist-in-Residence with the Heifetz International Music Institute in Staunton, Virginia, and is on faculty at the Valley of the Moon Music Institute in Sonoma, CA. Rachell is also an American Fellow of The English Concert. Originally from Seattle, Washington, Rachell counts among her numerous awards and honors grand prizes in the 52nd Sorantin International String Competition, the International Crescendo Music Awards, the Heida Hermann’s International Competition, and Seattle’s Gallery Concert’s Next Generation Competition. She is the recipient of a 2021 Jeffrey Thomas Award, a Barbara and David Jacobs Fellowship Award and an Artist Excellence Award, both from Indiana University; and a Starling Distinguished Violinist Scholarship from UT-Austin. Rachell holds a Masters of Music degree in Historical Performance from the Juilliard School where she was a recipient of a Kovner Fellowship and a Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant. She also has a Master of Music degree from Indiana University and a Bachelors of Music from the University of Texas at Austin. Her primary teachers include Brian Lewis, Cynthia Roberts, Elizabeth Blumenstock, Kent Coleman, Mark Kaplan, Monica Huggett, Rachel Podger, Simon James, and Stanley Ritchie. Rachell performs on a baroque violin from the school of Joachim Tielke ca. 1700, and a violin made in 1953 by Carlo de March.
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music of G.F. Handel and Ignatius Sancho
Program Notes, continued
The publication of Ignatius’ writing on slavery in this manner had a galvanizing effect on the abolition movement, and began his life as a publicly known person and his shop became known as the place in London to gather and talk not only about politics, but also about music, dance, and the arts. Upon his death, many of his letters were collected and published, and were popular enough to go through multiple editions. They are full of humor, passion, humility, and document a vibrant life full of love, friendship, music and dance.
Ignatius’ musical output is largely dances: minuets, country dances, cotillions, etc. One can imagine the social gatherings at his store, and at the houses of his friends, where dances long into the night included his newest material. Ignatius also published A New Collection of Songs, for voice and basso continuo, which includes settings of Shakespeare and contemporary poets. He even wrote a musical theory treatise which has sadly been lost to time.
His 12 Country Dances for the Year 1779 are dedicated to “Miss North”, which scholars generally conclude must be one of the three daughters of Lord Frederick North, Prime Minister of England from 1770-1782. Sancho would have come into contact with this family through his second family of patronage, the Brudenells. This is a set of functional country dances, complete with instructions for dancers alongside each score. They are occasionally danced today in English Country Dance circles. While many of Ignatius’ compositions are distinctly galant, the 12 Country Dances are spare - with a direct, earthbound style. The melodies are ear-worms, the rhythms propulsive and the set order very considered.
The titles of Ignatius’ dances in the 12 Country Dances seem to be a mix of characters familiar to the dedicatee: these are friends, acquaintances, favorite desserts (“Strawberrys and Cream”), vacation places. However, the final dance was most definitely for Ignatius himself: “Mungos Delight,” a remarkable dance, outside of the norm of the rest of collection both in melodic style (extreme leaps), and with a mixed major/minor mode. “Mungo” likely references a character from the play The Padlock by Issac Bickerstaffe (1769), a part Ignatius probably performed during his acting career. There’s an air of wistful melancholy to this tune, and as the last word of this collection, it makes one wonder what it meant for Ignatius.
George Frideric Handel loomed large over all English concert music of the 18th century, and is referenced in Ignatius’ letters as being among his favorite composers. Though born in Germany, George became one of England’s most celebrated composers both in his lifetime, and still today. George’s Op. 5 trio sonatas were written in 1738, probably after constant nagging from his friends (and publisher) to publish more instrumental chamber music. In private company, George was known for showing off at the keyboard and performing arias from his operas and oratorios, but the only trios that had been published up until then was a bootlegged set cobbled together by a publisher from his early days in Italy. The Op. 5 collection shows George, decades into his time in England, at the full height of his compositional ability, creating brilliant works in the British pastoral manner. These are more dance sets than abstract Sonatas: they are full of musettes, gavottes, minuetts and the like.
The British slave trade also touched Handel’s life. Scholars are debating now about the extent to which Handel engaged in investing in the Royal African Company, as Handel was often paid for his work through receiving stock. He typically would cash out the stocks soon after receiving them — he was often cash-strapped thanks to his obsession with the never-lucrative opera business. And the objects for sale in Sancho’s store? Sugar, tobacco, tea and oil.
-- by Clay Zeller-Townson