Project Sanssouci is the theme of an exciting, multi-year project I have undertaken to publish and lecture about music at the 18th-century court of Frederick “the Great,” and to create first editions and CD recordings of flute music in his circle. This year, 2012, marks the 300th anniversary of the king’s birth and has occasioned a number of recent and upcoming events. So far, the project includes four CD releases (see the Discography), with the next one (of unknown flute concertos by Quantz and Frederick) to be released in 2013. If you wish to play any of this music, look for my editions in the publications page, especially the first edition of four new sonatas by Frederick “the Great,” which has just been published by Breitkopf & Härtel.
My lecture-recital about Frederick as flutist, “The Flutist of Sanssouci: Frederick ‘the Great’ as Performer and Composer,” performed at the invitation of the National Flute Association in Las Vegas, 2012, has received an enthusiastic review. You can read it here! Also, look for my article with the same title, which has just been featured in the fall issue of Flutist Quarterly 18 (2012). A Dutch translation of the article will follow in FLUIT, the journal of the Dutch Flute Society.
In September, at the invitation of the Berlin State Archives and the Berlin State Library, I appeared as a guest speaker on the topic of King Frederick as a musician for the exhibition, Hommes de Lettres –Frederick: The King at His Writing Desk. The exhibition, in the Kulturforum in Berlin, ran from June to October 2012. On November 3 at 12:00pm at the meeting of the American Musicological Society in New Orleans, I presented another lecture-recital, this one focused on the art and meaning of the Adagio in 18th-century Berlin, entitled “Bringing His Audience to Tears: Frederick ‘the Great’ as Composer and Performer.”
Upcoming: December performances include a recital with Andrus Madsen, harpsichord, featuring music of C.P.E. Bach, Franz Benda, and Johann Joachim Quantz in Boston (Thursday, Dec. 13 at 12:15), hosted by Early Music Thursday at the First Church in Boston. Admission is free and open to the public.
