Albany Consort

A concert celebrating the birth of Julie Elizabeth Jeannin. The Albany Consort is a family-and-friends adventure, centered around founders Jonathan Salzedo and Marion Rubinstein and their daughter Laura Jeannin, who gave birth to Julie last year.

The Albany Consort is mostly an early music group, and after Julie’s birth it seemed that the celebration should include a new piece, combining elements of the present and the past, and written by someone who knows very well how to integrate many worlds. Jonathan’s long-time friend and collaborator, Berkeley composer Sheli Nan, was thrilled to accept the challenge, and her Suite for Julie Elisabet is the central work on the program.

"Many of the players were picked because of family connections, and Sheli made use of this knowledge, Thus the score is for a string chamber orchestra, with solo harpsichord, recorder and violin parts for Jonathan, Marion and Laura, a second recorder part for one of Marion’s mentors, Stanford Professor Herb Myers, string parts for some of Laura’s mentors and some of Laura’s contemporaries who also have recent offspring. So themes of sleep and play figure strongly in Sheli’s composition. Other aspects of the piece include a rich bass section with viola da gamba and violone in additional to cellos.