WASHINGTON DC
September
20 & 26:
ST.
MARK'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
301 A Street, SE
in Washington, D.C.
https://www.stmarks.net/
October
9:
THE
CHURCH OF THE EPIPHANY
1317 G Street, NW
in Washington, D.C.
https://epiphanydc.org/
Suggested
Donation:
$20 to $30
(a free will offering - everyone
welcome)
18
and under FREE
The Capitol Hill Chamber Music
Festival is proud to be an
affiliate organization of
Early Music America, which
develops, strengthens, and
celebrates early music and
historically informed
performance in North America.
CHCMF presents outstanding
early chamber music in
Baltimore
thanks to your support.
Please donate! All donations
are fully tax-deductible.
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2026 Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival on
Capitol Hill
~ Period Instrument chamber
music from six centuries ~
~ in collaboration with St. Marks
Episcopal Church
and the Church of the Epiphany ~
2026:
THE QUALITY OF
MERCY
The
2026 Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival celebrates
our shared humanity
through the musical depiction of experiences of
conflict resolution and compassion,
featuring 17th and 18th-century chamber music
performed by period
instrument specialists from around the country and
Canada.
September
20 - October 9, 2026
Please
join our MAILING
LIST for updated schedule announcements
(please specify Washington, DC)
2026
#1 THESE
DISTRACTED TIMES
Sunday,
September 20 at 7:00 PM
ST.
MARK'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH at 301
A Street, SE on Capitol Hill
Susie
Napper
~
viola da gamba
~
Elisabeth
Wright
~
harpsichord
~
Jeffrey
Cohan
~
baroque flute
~
Suites
entitled La Paix
(Peace) and Le Guerre
(War) by Monteclair,
settings by Francesco
Barsanti and Francesco
Geminiani of Scottish
ballads associated with
the Battle of Flodden
Field in 1513 and a
soldier's sad farewell,
and A Sad Pavan for
these Distracted Times
by Thomas Tomkins, written
following the execution of
Charles I and the
destruction of his organ
... these all reflect the
18th-century composer's
insight in providing
perspective and solace in
the face of discord and
suffering and are to be
included among other works
by the warrior king and
flutist Frederick the
Great, Johann Sebastian
Bach and George Friderick
Handel, alongside a solo
for viola da gamba by Carl
Friedrich Abel.
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2026
#2 A CHACONNE FOR PEACE
Saturday, September 26 at 7:00 PM
ST. MARK'S
EPISCOPAL CHURCH at
301 A Street, SE on Capitol Hill
Melisande
Corriveau
~
pardessus de viole
~
Susie
Napper
~
viola da gamba ~
Elisabeth
Wright
~
harpsichord
~
Jeffrey
Cohan
Les
Voix humaines,
the widely
celebrated
prize-winning
duo of viols
from Montreal,
joins us in a
program
illuminating the
role of the
chaconne in
France as the
culminating
statement of an
opera's content
at the court of
Louis XIV. In
Jean Baptiste
Lully's
"Phaeton"
(1683), warring
nations are
unified in
global harmony.
"Le Temple de la
Paix" was
premiered in
1685 two days
after Louis XIV
revoked the
Edict of Nantes.
Chaconnes from
these operas, in
remarkable
transcriptions
from 1713 for
chamber music
presentation to
Louis XIV by his
court librarian
Philidor l'Ainι
that Jeffrey
Cohan discovered
at the
Bibliotheque
Nationale in
Paris, will be
presented
alongside
Couperin's "La
Paix de
Parnasse" and
other selections
by Marin Marais
and Arcangelo
Corelli, which
demonstrate the
stylistic chasm
between French
and Italian
styles that was
debated
vociferously in
France during
the mid-18th
century (the
"Guerre des
Bouffons").
The rarely heard
pardessus de
viole is the
highest-pitched
member of the
fretted viol
family of
stringed
instruments,
corresponding to
the violin but
played in the
lap, alongside
the viola da
gamba or bass
viol, also
fretted like a
guitar and with
a range
approximating
that of the
cello.
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2026 #3
THE QUALITY OF
MERCY
SHAKESPEARE IN VENICE 1600
Friday, October 9 at 7:00 PM
THE
CHURCH OF THE EPIPHANY at 1317 G
Street, NW in Washington, DC
Marlisa
del Cid Woods
~
baroque violin
~
Anna
Marsh
~
dulcian/renaissance bassoon
~
William
Simms
~
baroque guitar and theorbo
~
Jeffrey
Cohan
~
renaissance flute
~
Shakespeare
asserted that The
quality of mercy is not
straind, it droppeth as
the gentle rain from
heaven in The
Merchant of Venice,
first performed in 1605. The
Italian chamber music from
this time to be included in
this program was imbued with
humanism's late 16th and
early 17th century
perspective that brought
human emotion, individualism
and an obsession with the
heroic ever more poignantly
into public consciousness in
all the arts. Music embraced
greater chromaticism and
emotional palpability,
leading to the unfolding of
what we think of today as
baroque style. Stunning and
relatively unknown musical
selections by Cima,
Buonamente, Merula,
Frescobaldi and "L'Eroica"
by Andrea Falconieri are to
be performed on instruments
seldom heard today.
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The
Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival has
since 2000 presented chamber music by
familiar as well as little-known composers
from the Renaissance through the present on
Capitol Hill in period instrument
performances which shed new light upon early
performance practice and contemporary works.
Unpublished works from the Library of
Congress are given particular attention, and
many have received their modern day
premieres during these concerts, in addition
to premieres of works by Slovenian
composers. The Capitol Hill Chamber Music
Festival is a nonprofit corporation in the
District of Columbia and an affiliate
organization of Early Music America.
~ updated September 9,
2026 ~
Do you receive our email
announcements and flyers?!
Please sign up for our MAILING
LIST (please
specify Capitol Hill)
for concert announcements including additional
program information.
by writing to: CHCMF@aol.com ~
thank you!
CHCMF
banner: detail from "Indeterminate
Landscape" by James C. Holl.
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