Album Notes

Brooklyn Baroque in its debut recording offers an exquisite program of chamber works composed by musical luminaries from Northern Europe. The works--some familiar, some rarely heard and never before recorded--represent the varied creative styles of three generations of German baroque composers.

Brooklyn Baroque was formed in the fall of 2000, when the long-standing duo of Andrew Bolotowsky, baroque flute, and Rebecca Pechefsky, harpsichord, were joined by cellist David Bakamjian. Since then, the group has performed regularly at New York City’s historic Morris-Jumel Mansion, as well as in several venues outside New York City, where the opportunities to hear Baroque music played on period instruments are not as frequent as in the New York Metropolitan area. Brooklyn Baroque specializes in music of Bach and his contemporaries, but its concerts often range further back into the 17th century or as far forward as Beethoven. The ensemble seeks to recapture the more leisurely sensibilities of the 18th century, when people were not constantly checking their timepieces and rushing off to catch trains. For the Telemann Quartet on this recording they are joined by their frequent guest performer Gregory Bynum, recorder.

David Bakamjian has performed (on both modern and baroque instruments) in New York’s premier concert halls, appeared several times on National Public Radio and WQXR (NY), and was a winner or finalist in four international chamber music competitions. While a member of the Casa Verde Trio, Mr. Bakamjian completed six critically acclaimed national tours as well as a month-long tour of China. Next season, he will be performing Brahms’s Double Concerto with the Allentown Symphony Orchestra.

Andrew Bolotowsky is also a specialist in modern repertoire, has been heard on radio stations WQXR, WBAI, WNCN, and WNYC, and has appeared on television stations NBS, CBS, and NYC. He has been a soloist with the Soho Baroque Company, and the Amor Artis and Musica Sacra Orchestras. Mr. Bolotowsky co-directed the Criterion Series at the Guggenheim Museum and has recorded for Orion Recordings, Golden Age Records, Opus I, and Station Hill Records. He can be heard on the internet in Jim Theobald’s work “Above Ground” for Flute and Electronic tape. With Rebecca Pechefsky, he has recorded four sonatas for flute and harpsichord by Johann Ludwig Krebs.

Rebecca Pechefsky gives frequent solo recitals, the most recent of which was at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. She has recorded little-known works by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre and Elias Brunnemüller, and the complete harpsichord works of François d'Agincour. She has premiered works by Frank J. Oteri and Louis Pelosi. Currently organist at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Glendale, Queens, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Erik Ryding, with whom she has written the biography Bruno Walter: A World Elsewhere (Yale Univ. Press, 2001).

Gregory Bynum has received fellowships to study in England and at the Amherst Early Music Festival in Massachusetts, where he worked with Marion Verbruggen, Han Tol, and Mattias Weilenman. He has performed with members of the Yale music faculty, including Jaap Schroeder, and with students and faculty of the Mannes School of Music. He has also taught at the Bloomingdale House of Music in Manhattan and has performed at the Morris-Jumel Mansion, the Middletown Thrall Library, the historic Old Stone House in Brooklyn, and numerous other chamber music venues in and around New York.