Camerata Pacifica’s “From Bach to Bolivia”

Embracing works from the Old and New Worlds, Camerata Pacifica continues its 34th season with “From Bach to Bolivia,” the first of two programs in its new Camerata Pacifica Baroque series featuring period instruments and curated by acclaimed flutist Emi Ferguson. The repertoire for the inaugural Baroque concert includes five seminal Bach chamber works: Prelude and Fugue; Trio Sonata No. 5; Prelude; Trio Sonata No. 2; and Toccata and Fugue.

They are set against six anonymous chamber works composed during the same era in Bolivia, which were rediscovered in the past 20 years in the Chiquitos Music Archives housed in a Bolivian Jesuit mission church and compiled by Dr. Piotr Nawrot. Bridging Bach’s masterworks and the anonymous works composed on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean is La Folia by Doménico Zipoli, an Italian composer who completed his musical training in Europe before moving in 1717 to Córdoba in Spanish Colonial America (now in Argentina), where he served as music director for the local Jesuit church.

Camerata Pacifica presents the fascinating program of 17th and 18th century works in four locations across Southern California, from the San Gabriel Valley to Santa Barbara, on Tuesday, October 17, 7:30 pm, at The Huntington’s Rothenberg Hall in San Marino; Thursday, October 19, 8 pm, at Zipper Hall in Downtown Los Angeles; Friday, October 20, 7:30 pm, in Hahn Hall at Santa Barbara’s Music Academy; and Sunday, October 22, 3 pm, at Janet and Ray Scherr Forum in Thousand Oaks. Camerata Pacifica is a chamber music collective renowned for its musical versatility and bold programming that demonstrate the limitless scope of the chamber music repertoire.

Adding luster to the eclectic program are Katie Hyun, a violin “virtuoso by any measure” (The Berkshire Review); cellist Coleman Itzkoff, praised for his “flawless technique and keen musicality” (The New Yorker); and Mikael Darmanie, a gifted cross-genre pianist noted for championing music of the African diaspora. Joining them is Ferguson, “a glorious flutist” (Los Angeles Times) who was awarded a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant. Ferguson has previously appeared twice with Camerata Pacifica, including last season with RUCKUS.

Camerata Pacifica’s second and final Baroque program this season, “Camerata Pacifica Baroque: The French Dispatch,” which offers a selection of rarely heard French Baroque repertoire, is set for April 21-26, 2023.

For “Camerata Pacifica: From Bach to Bolivia” tickets ($75 at The Huntington, Hahn Hall and Zipper Hall; $80 at Janet and Ray Scherr Forum) and information for please visit www.cameratapacifica.org.