Juilliard415 & Robert Mealy (Canceled)

Juilliard415, the school’s principal period-instrument ensemble, is celebrating its 10th anniversary season. Juilliard 415 has made significant contributions to musical life in New York and beyond, bringing major figures in the field of early music to lead performances of both rare and canonical works by composers of the 17th and 18th centuries. The many distinguished guests who have led Juilliard415 include Harry Bicket, William Christie, Monica Huggett, Nicholas McGegan, Rachel Podger, Jordi Savall, and Masaaki Suzuki. Juilliard415 tours extensively in the U.S. and abroad and has performed on five continents. It has given notable appearances at the Boston Early Music Festival, Leipzig Bachfest, and Utrecht Early Music Festival where Juilliard was the first-ever conservatory in residence. It made a ten-concert tour in New Zealand, returning for a second tour in spring, 2020. With its frequent musical collaborator the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, the ensemble has played throughout Scandinavia, Italy, Japan, Southeast Asia, the U.K., and India. Juilliard415 recently made its South American debut with concerts in Bolivia, a tour sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. In a concert with the Bach Collegium Japan conducted by Masaaki Suzuki, Juilliard415 recently played a historic period-instrument performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in Germany. Previous seasons have featured side-by-side collaborations with Philharmonia Baroque in San Francisco, as well as concerts directed by such eminent musicians as Ton Koopman, Robert Mealy, Kristian Bezuidenhout, and the late Christopher Hogwood.

Juilliard415 has performed major oratorios and Baroque operas every year since its founding, including a unique, fully-staged production of Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie during the 2017-18 season. During the 2018-19 season, the ensemble presented Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Opera Holland Park in London and the Royal Opera House of Versailles. A frequent collaborator with Juilliard’s Dance division, Juilliard415 premiered Juilliard dancers doing new choreography in an all-Rameau program led by Robert Mealy. It teams up again with Juilliard Dance this season for a new work choreographed by Andrea Miller.

Juilliard415 has had the distinction of premiering new works for period instruments, most recently for its Seven Last Words Project. For this Holy Week concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the ensemble commissioned works by seven leading composers including Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw, and Tania Leon.

Highlights of the 2019-20 season include performances with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants at the Philharmonie de Paris; Handel’s Rinaldo conducted by Nicholas McGegan in New York and at the Göttingen Handel Festival in Germany; a program of music inspired by Shakespeare led by Rachel Podger; the Juilliard415 debut of Pablo Heras-Casado in a program of music from the Spanish Baroque; and another side-by-side collaboration with Philharmonia Baroque in San Francisco.

juilliard.edu/music/historical-performance