The American Classical Orchestra returns to historic Harlem Parish, the beautiful location of its highly regarded 2020 digital production of The Chaconne Project, for an intimate and creatively staged live performance of the program.

The Thursday 3 February concert, led by ACO Founder and Artistic Director Thomas Crawford, features renowned Mexican mezzo-soprano Guadalupe Peraza in a lively baroque repertoire program featuring the chaconne, a musical genre that began like 16th century debauchery dances in Spanish culture. .

After Revisit, the Orchestra’s next concert is Remember, on February 26, with Mozart’s Requiem in D minor, coupled with the world premiere of Thomas Crawford’s Elegy for Strings. This concert marks the return on stage of the famous ACO Chorus.

The title of this salon concert-Revisit-refers to the ACO’s much-loved fall 2020 digital release of the Chaconne project, filmed in one of the city’s best examples of Gothic Revival 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 bassline – and sheds light on its evolution as it passes from the street to the living room via the concert hall. Thomas Crawford conducts the chamber ensemble of strings and plucked instruments, with vocals and percussion. It features Mexican mezzo-soprano Guadalupe Peraza, who has performed 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 be required to follow site directions and present proof of complete COVID-19 vaccination in order to enter the building. About Thomas Crawford Artistic Director and Founder of the American Classical Orchestra, Thomas Crawford, is a champion of historically accurate performance styles in Baroque, Classical and Early Romantic music. He founded two Connecticut orchestras: the Fairfield Orchestra and the Old Fairfield Academy Orchestra, an offshoot of period instruments from the Fairfield Orchestra, renamed the American Classical Orchestra in 1999. With the Fairfield Orchestra, Crawford has commissioned numerous works by composers, including John Corigliano. and William Thomas McKinley, and has 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 Keith Jarrett’s Bridge of Light at Alice Tully Hall, subsequently recorded on the ECM label. An accomplished composer, organist and conductor, Crawford won the prestigious BMI Composition Award for his organ work Ashes of Rose, 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 received a Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, thereby recognizing the dynamic musical influence of the ACO among the Schoolchildren of New York City. A native of Pennsylvania, he graduated in organ performance and composition from the Eastman School of Music and Columbia University.

For more information, visit aconyc.org.