Coming up on Philly music: Improv Baroque

The director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (COP), Dirk Brossé, has chosen improvisation as COP’s theme for the current season. COP’s next concert will focus on improvisation in the Baroque period — an era in which improvisation formed an important aspect of performance practice.

Baroque musicians routinely improvised harpsichord accompaniments and the flashy solos that end the first movements of most concertos. They added trills and other embellishments as the spirit moved them. Great organists like Bach were celebrated for their ability to improvise.

The guest conductor is a conductor and keyboard player noted for his flair as an improviser. Jeffrey Brillhart first attracted widespread attention when he won the National Competition in Organ Improvisation, sponsored by the American Guild of Organists. He teaches organ improvisation at Yale and has written a textbook on the subject. He’s also the conductor of Philadelphia’s Singing City chorus. He will conduct the Chamber Orchestra from the harpsichord, as Baroque conductors usually did. In the middle of the second half, he’ll improvise a harpsichord solo based on themes taken from the rest of the program. He’ll have lots of material to work with: the other items on the bill include two of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, two French pieces by Rameau, and a harpsichord concerto by Bach’s son, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia will present Brillhart: All Baroque on Sunday, February 25, at 2:30pm and on Monday, February 26, at 7:30pm at the Kimmel’s Perelman Theater (Broad and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia). Tickets ($25 to $85) are available online and at the door.