Ensemble Pompadour - POMPADOUR’S PARLOUR
THURSDAY 16 MAY 2024 8PM
TICKETS $35 | CONCESSION $20
Nick Pollock (theorbo), Simon Rickard (baroque musette) and Laura Vaughan (treble and bass violas da gamba) are three of Australia’s leading exponents of baroque music. They share a particular love for the French baroque, and for weird and wonderful historical instruments - the more exotic the better. Ensemble Pompadour is named for Madame de Pompadour, mistress, friend and advisor to Louis XV and influential patron of the arts in Paris.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
The grand operas of Jean-Philippe Rameau and virtuosic keyboard works of François Couperin are often heard on the concert platform today. Less familiar is the day-to-day music which was the aural backdrop to Versailles Palace’s glittering interiors and rambling gardens.
In this programme of music by Joseph-Bodin de Boismortier, Michel Corrette, Marin Marais, Jean-Baptiste Forqueray and Robert de Visee, Ensemble Pompadour explore this charming, but little-heard repertoire, once played in private apartments on the most fashionable instruments of their day - the viola da gamba, theorbo, and the baroque musette, a tiny, bijou bagpipe made for playing indoors. This delightful French baroque repertoire is routinely overlooked today, because it was domestic music, played by highly skilled amateurs in their private apartments or the gardens of Versailles palace. In the eighteenth century, if you wanted to hear music, you didn’t simply stream it on your phone, you had to actually play the music for yourself.
This concert is a rare opportunity to hear these rare instruments playing this rarely-heard repertoire. Don’t expect musical fireworks; this is music for the enjoyment of a few selected friends to enjoy in private. This May, Ensemble Pompadour invites you into our inner circle to be charmed by these intimate strains.
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
Simon is primarily a specialist in historical bassoons, from the 16th to the 18th centuries. He studied at the Dutch Royal Conservatorium in the Hague, thereafter spending several years playing with European ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants in Paris and the Gabrieli Consort and Players in London, before returning to Australia. In addition to historical bassoons, Simon is a leading exponent of a bizarre renaissance woodwind instrument called the rackett, and the baroque musette, the smallest and poshest member of the bagpipe family.
https://www.instagram.com/simon_rickard/
Laura also studied at the Dutch Royal Conservatorium in the Hague. She is a specialist in the viola da gamba, performing mostly on the seven-string French baroque bass viol, occasionally branching out to play consort music on the smaller treble viol, or the great bass member of the family, the violone. Laura is one of a handful of musicians who play the 13-stringed lira da gamba, an exquisite, bowed, chord playing instrument, used for accompanying early Italian opera, as well as being Australia’s only exponent of the baryton, a unique hybrid of the viola da gamba and the bandora, for which Haydn composed music to be played by his patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy.
https://www.lauravaughan.com/
Nick is an Australian multi-instrumentalist specialising in early plucked strings. Starting out on electric guitar, he then progressed to the renaissance lute, theorbo, baroque guitar, baroque lute, archlute, cittern and most recently the gallichon. A dynamic and versatile performer, Nicholas is equally at home playing guitar in a punk band as performing the intimate lute works of John Dowland on the concert stage. He has a particular interest inthe lute and theorbo music of seventeenth-century France.