Echoes Across the Atlantic

Jeanine De Bique, artist in residence in Brussels this season, joins the Grammy-winning ensemble Apollo’s Fire and conductor Jeannette Sorrell to explore the historical connections between Europe and the Caribbean colonies in the eighteenth century. Across the waters, tales of love, despair and resilience emerge – with surprising resonance for today. A suite from Handel’s masterful Agrippina (1709) leads to a Caribbean funeral oration of the same year, lamenting the murder of an enslaved man by the plantation owner. A thrilling orchestral suite by Rameau and his flirtatious ‘Air de la Folie – Aux langueurs d’Apollon’ from Platée explodes into a joyous Creole wedding. And the virtuoso music of Vivaldi, Purcell and Lully meets the soulful voices of Caribbean poets in this celebration of our shared humanity.