OVER HET CONCERT: De combinatie van luit, viool en cello is het perfecte vehikel voor de Empfindsamkeit van de Noord-Duitse preklassieke muziek.

Met een sonate van Johann Kropffganss en een sonate van Christoph Schaffrath als schoolvoorbeeld van de Galante stijl in Berlijn, met de opvallende indicatie dat dit stuk zowel op luit als op klavecimbel kan worden uitgevoerd. De sonate van Friedrich Wilhelm Rust is een van de laatste stukken voor luit geschreven vóór de 20e eeuw en illustreert hoe luitisten de Style Galante konden overstijgen en anticipeerden op het klassieke tijdperk.

ABOUT THE CONCERT: Chamber music for baroque lute is the last great flowering in its long and rich history. During the late baroque and galant eras, lutenists adapted the special sonorities of the lute to develop a singular form, drawing inspiration from the trio sonata and the concerto. The sonata of Johann Kropffganss illustrates how the lute was the perfect vehicle for the Empfindsamkeit of North German preclassicism. The Sonata of Christoph Schaffrath is a great example of the Galant style in Berlin with the peculiar indication that it can be performed on either lute or harpsichord. The trio sonata of Anton Solnitz is a prime example of the contemporary transcription of music to accommodate the lute. The Sonata of Friedrich Wilhelm Rust is one of the last pieces for the lute written before the 20th century and illustrates how lutenists were able to move beyond the Galant and anticipate the Classical era.

Earl Christy

Earl Christy is an American lutenist active in the reawakening of long neglected music for the baroque lute. He has been fortunate to study with some of the most well respected teachers in the world (Prof. Edward Martin at the College of St. Scholastica Prof. Toyohiko Satoh at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag, Prof. Nigel North at the University of Indiana, Prof. Paul Beier at the Accademia Internazionale della Musica in Milano) and has been awarded his B.Mus and M.Mus degrees from the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag as well as his Post-graduate Specialization from the Accademia Internazionale della Musica in Milano.

Earl Christy is currently specialized in the music for baroque lute from the later 17th and 18th centuries. As a soloist, he has given numerous concerts throughout Europe and North America, including the summer course of the Lute Society of America, the symposium on the music of Jan Antonin Logy in Piuro, the VI Congresso Internazionale Sul Clavocordo in Magnano, the Utrecht Early Music Festival and Echi Lontani Stagione 16 in Cagliari. His concert programs have helped introduce audiences to newly discovered and neglected music.

As well as performance, Earl Christy is an active composer for the baroque lute whose works have been published and performed. His CD “Neue Lautenfruchte”, which features his own compositions for lute, has been enthusiastically received by numerous international journals. In addition to his performing activities, he has been invited to give masterclasses on baroque performance and interpretation and has seen his articles and editions published in the Lute Society of America Quarterly and the Lute and Early Guitar Society.

Helmut Riebl

Helmut Riebl has received degrees in Music Pedagogy, main subject Violin at the Hochschule für Musik München (Germany, 1997), and in Choral Conducting respectively Baroque Violin at the Royal Conservatory The Hague (The Netherlands, 2003).

He has toured extensively as a soloist and chamber musician in Europe and America, performing among others with Nederlandse Bachvereniging, Amsterdam Baroque, Das neue Orchester (Cologne), New York Baroque and Le Tendre Amour (Barcelona). He has given masterclasses and music courses all around Europe and  has been working as a violinist in the Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht since 2011.

Helmut Riebl works as a sound designer and composer of videogame music for the multimedia studio ImpulsLab, Kraków (Poland) since 2015. In his own company Arcomania he creates copies of historical bows for string instruments, carries out repairs and gives bowmaking courses. His interest for new approaches to music has led him to explore Latin American music, especially from Argentina and Brazil, where memorization and improvisation of music are commonplace. He tries to capture this spirit of improvisation in his performances of classical music. Helmut is currently preparing a publication of his first volume of compositions for solo violin.

Jacopo Ristori

Jacopo Ristori completed his studies in Genova at the Conservatorio “N. Paganini” with Nevio Zanardi and he graduated in Alessandria with Claudio Merlo in 2010. Very important was the encounter with Antonio Meneses, with whom he took lessons and masterclasses for two years for improving his musical and technical skills. Jacopo worked as a freelance cellist in Italy for years while he was developing interest in the historical performance practice.

In 2016 he moved to the Netherlands for deepening his knowledge in early music and studied with Viola de Hoog in Utrecht. In June 2019 Jacopo completed his studies at the Utrecht Conservatory, with distinction from the whole jury (they called his performance and arrangement of Schumann’s cello concerto remarkable). During his studies in Utrecht, Jacopo also started to practice the violone in G (8 foot) for approaching the early baroque period and studying the role of the bass in the 17th century. Apart from the baroque and classical period, Jacopo is also practicing 19th century repertoire from a historical point of view experimenting with principles of the performance practice of that time.

Jacopo Ristori took part in the masterclass, focused on the romantic repertoire, with Jesper Christensen during the Romberg Dagen in Amsterdam in 2018. In September 2020, he was part of the internship organised by Collegium Vocale Gent led by Philippe Herreweghe. Jacopo lives in the Netherlands working as a freelancer and he works with various ensembles such as Concerto Köln and the Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht led by Johannes Leertouwer. In October 2020 he was invited by the Narratio Quartet to perform Verklärte Nacht by Schönberg in the concert series of the 10th edition of the Académie Européenne de Musique Ancienne de Vannes.

In 2021 he took part to the first edition of the international competition “Beethoven in seiner Zeit” in duo with the pianist Anastasiya Akinfina. They were among the five finalists receiving a special merit award. Recently he became the owner of an instrument built in South Germany around 1780.