4 Thursday, October 27, 2016 Island Beat Hawaii Tribune-Herald Composers behaving badly The Wayward Sisters will perform 17th century music by the “bad boys” of the Baroque. Concert by Wayward Sisters to feature ‘naughty list’ of the Baroque When your concert focuses on some of the most cantankerous composers ever to set notes to paper, you can’t be blamed for calling the program “The Naughty List: Music of Braggarts, Hotheads, Curmudgeons and Snobs.” The Wayward Sisters, a Baroque consort that won the 2011 Early Music America/Naxos Recording Competition, will perform a concert with that intriguing title at 7:30 p.m. Tuesaday at the University of Hawaii at Hilo Performing Arts Center as part of the Hawaii Concert Society’s 2016-17 season. Founded in 2009, the group is comprised of violinist Beth Wenstrom, recorder player Anne Timberlake, cellist Anna Steinhoff and theorbo and guitar player John Lenti. The sisters in Wayward Sisters met when they were undergraduates in Oberlin, but only Timberlake played Baroque music. So while they became great friends, they never actually made music together. When they graduated in 2003, they went their separate ways musically. Eventually, Wenstrom and Steinhoff took paths that brought them to early music (Wenstrom was one of the first graduates of Juilliard’s historical performance program), and in 2009 the three decided to meet in Chicago, play together, record a demo and see how it went. They chose the name, Wayward Sisters, which refers not only to Baroque composer/songwiter Henry Purcell’s vivid conjuring of the witches in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” but also to the group members’ far-flung lives and continuing commitment to make music together. Two of the Sisters knew Lenti, and called on him to join them. He was glad for an excuse to visit his brother in Chicago, and soon became a member of the group. He now refers to himself as an “honorary sister.” Says Timberlake, “We recorded a little bit, we had a great time and we wondered how we could do more of this.” While the program title appears to suggest that what the audience will hear is somehow lurid and scandalous, the music to be performed, on period instruments, is largely graceful and does not match the unpleasant traits of its composers. One of the composers, Bellerofonte Castaldi, actually murdered someone, but it seems that rather than homicidal criminals, the rest were simply vain, difficult and irritable, as pointed out in the wryly humorous program notes Courtesy photo supplied by the musicians. The other composers on the “naughty list” include such luminaries as Bach, Vivaldi and Matthew Locke, but also lesser-knowns such as William Brade, Tarquinio Merula (dismissed from one position for “indecency manifested toward several of his pupils”), Francesca Maria Veracini, Dario Castello and Nicolas Matteis (about whom was written, “His pride and arrogance were incomparable”). Music by each of them will be heard in the Hilo concert. Tickets for the Tuesday concert are $25 general admission, $20 for those age 60 and older and $10 for students. Tickets are available at The Most Irresistible Shop, Music Exchange and the UH-Hilo Performing Arts Center box office. Remaining tickets will be available at the door after 6:45 p.m.
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