The Society for the Doctrinal Affectation of Baroque Music opens its 2015 season with a free concert of Baroque music at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, in St. Mary’s Chapel, located on the far-western end of Summit Avenue on the campus of the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity of the University of St. Thomas.
Dr. Gerald Gaul
The concert features violist Dr. Gerald Gaul who will play a viola made in the middle of the 18th century. Gaul, who began studying the viola at age 11, holds a music degree from New College in Florida and a medical degree from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. An eye surgeon, he teaches in both the medical school and music department of the University of North Dakota. He performed for 20 years with the Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra and recently was named a trustee of the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota.
Gaul will be joined by St. Thomas professors and members of the Society for the Doctrinal Affectation of Baroque Music: organist and harpsichordist David Jenkins and guitarist Christopher Kachian.
A third society member, St. Thomas art historian Michelle Nordtorp-Madson, will present mini lectures, with slides, about the art, clothing and architecture of Venice.
Selections for the evening include Benedetto Marcello’s Sonata in E minor for viola and continuo; Dietrich Buxtehude’s Variations on La Capricciosa for solo harpsichord; and Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Viola, Guitar and Continuo.
The society’s program notes explain that it “is dedicated to stylish performances of early musical artifacts with nonconventional instrumentation. The society’s artistic mission is to arouse the elevated passions of modern audiences through elegant interpretations informed by the latest in historical discovery.”
More information about the society is available at (651) 962-5858.
