Robert Mealy (Concertmaster), one of America’s leading historical string players, has been praised for his “imagination, taste, subtlety, and daring” (Boston Globe). The New Yorker described him as “New York’s world-class early music violinist.” He has recorded over 50 CDs on most major labels, ranging from Hildegard of Bingen with Sequentia, to Renaissance consorts with the Boston Camerata, to Rameau operas with Les Arts Florissants.

Mr. Mealy has appeared at music festivals from Berkeley to Belgrade, and from Melbourne to Versailles; he has also toured with the Mark Morris Dance Group and accompanied Renée Fleming on the David Letterman Show. In New York he is a frequent leader and soloist with various ensembles. Since 2004, he has been concertmaster for the distinguished Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, leading them in three GRAMMY®-nominated recordings and several festivals. A devoted chamber musician, he is a member of the medieval ensemble Fortune’s Wheel, the Renaissance violin band the King’s Noyse, and the ensemble Quicksilver.

Mr. Mealy is Professor of Music, adjunct, at Yale University, where he directs the Yale Collegium and teaches courses on rhetoric and performance. For a decade previously, he directed the Harvard Baroque Orchestra. He is also on the faculty of the new Historical Performance program at Juilliard. In 2004 he received Early Music America’s Binkley Award for outstanding teaching at both Harvard and Yale.

Avi Stein teaches harpsichord, vocal repertoire and chamber music at Yale University, continuo accompaniment at the Juilliard School, and is the music director at St. Matthew & St. Timothy Episcopal Church in Manhattan. The New York Times described him as "a brilliant organ soloist" in his Carnegie Hall debut and he was recently featured in Early Music America magazine in an article on the new generation of leaders in the field.

Mr. Stein has performed throughout the United States, in Europe, Canada, and Central America. He is an active continuo accompanist who plays regularly with the Boston Early Music Festival, the Trinity Church Wall Street Choir and Baroque Orchestra, the Clarion Music Society and Bach Vespers NYC. He directed the young artists’ program at the Carmel Bach Festival. He has also conducted a variety of ensembles including the Opera Français de New York, the OperaOmnia, and a critically acclaimed annual series called the 4x4 Festival.

Mr. Stein studied at Indiana University, the Eastman School of Music, the University of Southern California, and was a Fulbright scholar in Toulouse.

PROGRAM

From Venice to Vienna: New Music from the Seventeenth Century

Sonata seconda Giovanni Battista Fontana (c.1571– c.1630)
from Sonate… per il violino o simile altro istromento (Venice, 1641)

Diminutions on Frais et Gailliard Giovanni Bassano (c.1558–c.1617)
from Ricercate, passaggi et cadentie… (Venice, 1585)

Sonata prima, per soprano solo Dario Castello (fl. early 17c)
from Sonate Concertate in Stil Moderno, Libro II (Venice, 1629)

Sonata terza Fontana

Sonata seconda, La Luciminia contenta Marco Uccellini (1603–1680)
from Sonate, correnti et arie, Op.4 (Venice, 1645)

Sonata quarta, La Castella Giovanni Pandolfi Mealli (c.1630–c.1670)
from Sonate a Violino solo, Op.3 (Innsbruck, 1660)

Sonata terza in G minor Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (c.1620–1680)
from Sonatae unarum fidium (Vienna, 1664)