The title of this living room concert – Revisit – refers to the ACO’s much-loved fall 2020 digital release of the Chaconne project, filmed in one of the city’s leading examples of neo-Gothic architecture, the Harlem Parish.

With Revisit, the original cast of musicians come together in the same beautiful setting and perform the program live.

This vibrant concert offers ten examples of the chaconne – a musical genre characterized by its repetitive bass line – and highlights its evolution as it moves from street to living room to concert hall.

Thomas Crawford conducts the chamber ensemble composed of strings and plucked instruments, with voice and percussion.

It features Mexican mezzo-soprano Guadalupe Peraza, who has appeared as a featured soloist with the New York Virtuoso Singers and at the majestic Teatro de la Ciudad Esperanza Iris in Mexico City.

Tickets, priced at $35 and $55, are available at aconyc.org or by calling the ACO at 212.362.2727, ext. 4.

Ticket holders will need to follow venue guidelines and show proof of full COVID-19 vaccination to enter the building.

Thomas Crawford

American Classical Orchestra Artistic Director and Founder Thomas Crawford is a champion of historically accurate performance styles in Baroque, Classical and Romantic music.

He founded two Connecticut orchestras: the Fairfield Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy, the period instrument branch of the Fairfield Orchestra, renamed American Classical Orchestra in 1999.

With the Fairfield Orchestra, Crawford commissioned many works from composers including John Corigliano and William Thomas McKinley, and collaborated with artists such as Joshua Bell, John Corigliano, Vladimir Feltsman, Richard Goode, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman , André Watts and Dawn Upshaw.

He also conducted the world premiere of Bridge of Light by Keith Jarrett at Alice Tully Hall, subsequently recorded on the ECM label.

An accomplished composer, organist and choirmaster, Crawford won the prestigious BMI Composition Award for his organ work Ashes of Rose, which premiered at the American Guild of Organists.

A passionate activist determined to bring the beauty of period music to a wider audience, Mr. Crawford’s educational activities with the Orchestra have received a National Endowment Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth Award. for the Arts, recognizing the dynamism of the New York City Schoolchildren COA.

A native of Pennsylvania, he holds degrees in organ performance and composition from the Eastman School of Music and Columbia University in Harlem.

American classical orchestra

Founded in 1984 as the Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy, the ensemble was renamed the American Classical Orchestra in 1999. Founder and artistic director Thomas Crawford established his new permanent residence in New York in 2005.

It is now the only full-scale orchestra in the city dedicated to performing 17^and18^andand 19th century music on period instruments.

Described as “simply splendid” by the New York Times, the ACO’s musicians are the best in their field, made up of artists who also perform with major New York ensembles such as the Orchestra of St. Luke’s , the Handel and Haydn Society and the New York Philharmonic.

Its main actors are faculty members of the Juilliard School, and the ACO works closely with students enrolled in the school’s historical performance program.

The American Classical Orchestra Chorus, made up of professional singers from the New York metropolitan area, joins the ACO for larger productions.

By playing music on original instruments and using historical performance techniques, ACO strives to recreate the sounds audiences would have heard when the music was first written and performed.

The Orchestra and its “extremely talented musicians” (Theater Scene) have received critical acclaim for their recordings, educational programs, and concerts, including appearances at Alice Tully Hall and on Lincoln’s Great Performers Series Center, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and for a sold-out 25th anniversary performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at St. John the Divine Cathedral.

For more information, visit aconyc.org.

Get your tickets here

Photo credits: American Classical Orchestra with Guadalupe Peraza performing The Chaconne Project, November 2020 in Harlem Parish, courtesy of the ACO.