The Musicians of Ma’alwyck announce their first live concert since 2020 with Celestial Melodies, celebrating the music of William & Catherine Herschel and their contemporaries, taking place March 11 and 12 in Schenectady and Albany.
The Musicians of Ma’alwyck are a flexible-size chamber ensemble in residence at the Schuyler Mansion New York State Historic Site and Schenectady County Community College. Founded in 1999 by violinist and director Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz, the group specializes in music performed in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were named the best chamber music ensemble of the Capital Region for both 2008 and 2009 by Metroland and were nominated for the Eddies Music Award.
The ensemble released its first commercial CD in 2016, Music in the Schuyler Mansion, which the Times Union called “elegant and charming,” and their second in 2021, Hyde Hall & the Silver Goddess: Operatic Brilliance of Auber, Bellini, Meyerbeer, and Rossini from the Drawing Room.
The Celestial Melodies program will feature the music of composers and astronomers William and Catherine Herschel, as well as others. The concert will include not only the music of the Herschels and their contemporaries but a visual component as well, a specially developed sky show, with dazzling images and unique looks at the constellations as they appeared in Herschel’s lifetime. The program also
features the world premiere of a new work Invocation by Max Caplan, inspired by the NASA data sonification project.
William Herschel was born into a musical family, with his father being a professional oboist and himself a fine violinist, harpsichordist, and organist. He came to England in the 1750s as a member of the Hanover Band and worked as the Bath Church’s organist and director of the orchestra and concert series. He is known for his incredible astronomical discoveries, which include the discovery of infrared radiation, astronomical spectrophotometry, the planet Uranus and far-seeing telescopes. Herschel’s younger sister Caroline was also an outstanding musician and astronomer, she was the first female astronomer to receive a salary and in 1828 she was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Their first performance of Celestial Melodies will take place in Schenectady on March 11 at the Museum of Innovation and Science, and tickets are $35. The second performance will be at Schuyler Mansion New York State Historic Site in Albany, and tickets are $40 for general admission and $10 for students. Reservations are strongly suggested as seating is limited. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit here.
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