Before the launch of Infusion Baroque's most recent album this past June, Sallynee Amawat had the chance to discuss with Natasha Gauthier from Early Music America on her multiple current projects.
Talk to Sallynee Amawat about music for any length of time and you’ll hear the verb “connect” mentioned repeatedly.
Whether she’s seeking out collaborators and partners in unexpected places or describing how she chooses pieces for a program and weaves them into a story for the audience, it’s clear that connection is Amawat’s creative fuel as well as her goal.
Amawat is a Thai-American Baroque violinist and artistic director of Infusion Baroque, the all-women instrumental quartet that won both the Grand Prize and Audience Prize at the 2014 Early Music America Performance Competition.
Over recent years, Infusion Baroque has produced The Virtuosa Project, a web series of elegant animation and brilliant performances, each exploring the music and life of a woman from the 18th or 19th centuries, including the flutist Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia, cellist Lise Cristiani, violinist Teresa Milanollo, and harpsichordist Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre. The videos are online now.
Another Infusion Baroque project is East is East, featuring arrangements inspired by traditional Persian music plus Vivaldi, Corelli, Monteverdi, Fux, and a suite of Indo-Colonial airs. With a slew of guest artists, including Iranian-Canadians Amir Amiri (santur), Hamin Honari (tombak and daf), and Indian-American soprano Vidita Kanniks, they performed last month in Montreal and are planning a recording and tour in 2023.
One goal behind East is East, says Amawat, is to “expand the scope of early-music performance practice rather than perform much of the ‘exoticized’ repertoire from the past that has little to do with Eastern music traditions.”
By Natasha Gauthier via Early Music America.
Click here to read the full article.
Virtuosa is now released on Leaf Music.
Click here to watch the webseries.
Click here to buy/stream the album.