“Tempesta di Mare performed Jan Dismas Zelenka’s Lamentations of Jeremiah Friday night, March 26, in the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. Tempesta’s directors Gwyn Roberts and Richard Stone divided the six [cantatas] to make two equal halves of an intriguing and enlightening program. The six sets of specific “Lamentations” themselves throb with heart-breaking melancholy and despair while the closing text of each individual cantata—“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return to the Lord your God”—burst forth with the joy of the eternal hope that characterizes both Judaism and Christianity. Tempesta di Mare fielded a roster of musicians that included 13 instrumentalists and three vocalists. Best of the latter group was tenor Aaron Sheehan. He invested his singing with an appreciation of and identification with the external denotation and internal connotation of the text, and proffered a tone of mellow beauty and impassioned phrasing. Among the players, Gwyn Roberts and Eve Friedman on flutes and recorder, Debra Nagy and Stephen Bard on oboes, and Marilyn Boenau on bassoon were especially deserving of praise.” Chestnut Hill Local, March 2010.
“Tempesta di Mare, the baroque big band, aimed at polar exploration in its Holy Week concerts last weekend, performing Zelenka’s Lamentations of Jeremiah at Protestant and Catholic churches (Chestnut Hill Presbyterian and Old St. Joseph’s). Zelenka probes all this seriousness with a heightened sense of instrumental expressiveness. Oboes, flutes, and bassoon infuse the rich writing for strings to wreathe the vocal lines with subtle and bold comment on the text. Zelenka sounds new. His turn of phrase, his harmonic forthrightness and his elegant architecture lead listeners around some intriguing corners. Should lamenting offer that much pleasure? How to atone for the glow felt at the end of each work? The singers exemplified flexibility, clarity and minimal vibrato, virtues that heightened expressive range. Cool voices with searing messages. The ensemble is a marvel of shared leadership. The violin may lead for a moment, then an oboist guides a shift until theorbo guru and co-director Richard Stone mounts a rhythmic and color charge into new territory in music’s polar divide. Zelenka could not help winning new friends here.” Philadelphia Inquirer, March, 2010.