The Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra is a period chamber orchestra specializing in historically informed performance

Historically informed performance

Historically informed performance is an approach in the performance of music and theater. Within this approach, the performance adheres to state-of-the-art knowledge of the aesthetic criteria of the period in which the music or theatre work was conceived...

 of music from the Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 through early Classical

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 eras. They are based in Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...

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History and Musicians

The group was founded in 1993 by lutist Michael Eagan and gambist Mark Chatfield. The group performs regularly at Zipper Hall

Zipper Hall

Herbert Zipper Concert Hall is a 415 seat music venue located on the campus of the Colburn School in Los Angeles, California, United States. In addition to serving as a performance space for the school, it also is home to Monday Evening Concerts, Southwest Chamber Music, Piano Spheres, and Musica...

 at Colburn School

Colburn School

The Colburn School is a music, dance, and drama school located in downtown Los Angeles adjacent to the Museum of Contemporary Art and across the street from the Walt Disney Concert Hall...

, as well as the Broad Stage at the Performing Arts Center at Santa Monica College

Santa Monica College

Santa Monica College is a two-year, public, junior college located in Santa Monica, California.Santa Monica College was first opened in 1929 as Santa Monica Junior College. Current enrollment is over 30,000 students in more than 90 fields of study...

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Martin Haselböck

Martin Haselböck

Martin Haselböck is the musical director of Musica Angelica in Santa Monica, California, and the musical director and founder of the Orchester Wiener Akademie. He is also a professor at the University of Vienna, where he teaches organ.-External links:...

 leads the orchestra as its musical director and conductor. Featured performers and conductors have included Giovanni Antonini

Giovanni Antonini

Giovanni Antonini is an Italian conductor and soloist on the recorder and baroque transverse flute. He studied in his native Milan, and attended the Civica Scuola di Musica in that city and the Centre de Musique Ancienne in Geneva...

, Rinaldo Alessandrini

Rinaldo Alessandrini

Rinaldo Alessandrini is a virtuoso on Baroque keyboards, including harpsichord, fortepiano, and organ. He is founder and conductor of the Italian early music ensemble Concerto Italiano, performing music of Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Couperin, J. S. Bach, and others...

, Harry Bicket

Harry Bicket

Harry Bicket is a British conductor, harpsichordist and organist.Bicket was educated at Radley College, Christ Church, Oxford, where he was organ scholar, and the Royal College of Music...

, Paul Goodwin

Paul Goodwin

Paul Goodwin is an English conductor, and former oboist.As an oboist he studied oboe with Janet Craxton and, following his graduation from the University of Nottingham with a degree in composition, specialized in contemporary oboe techniques and the baroque oboe at the Guildhall School of Music...

, violinist Rachel Podger

Rachel Podger

Rachel Podger is an English violinist specialising in the performance of baroque music. She often conducts baroque orchestras from the violin, and in 2004 took up a guest directorship with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, having previously been leader of The English Concert from 1997 to...

, and Jory Vinikour

Jory Vinikour

Jory Vinikour is an American harpsichordist. He has been living in Paris since 1990, where he studied on a scholarship from the Fulbright Foundation with Huguette Dreyfus and Kenneth Gilbert....

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Repertoire and Performances

The orchestra performs both the well-known pieces and lesser known gems of the baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 and classical eras. In addition to established repertory, Musica Angelica has premiered over ten works in the new-music genre.

The group's 2004 premiere of a 1737 oratorio by Nicola Porpora

Nicola Porpora

Nicola Porpora was an Italian composer of Baroque operas and teacher of singing, whose most famous singing student was the castrato Farinelli. One of his other students was composer Matteo Capranica.-Biography:Porpora was born in Naples...

, Il Gedeone, received positive reviews. Most recently, in March 2009, Musica Angelica performed the North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n premiere of Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...

's opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

, Motezuma

Motezuma

Motezuma is an opera in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi with an Italian libretto by Girolamo Giusti. The first performance was given in the Teatro Sant'Angelo in Venice on 14 November 1733...

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Notable performances have included a collaboration with actor John Malkovich

John Malkovich

John Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...

, in a one man show

One man show

The term one-man show often referred to comedian, who would stand on stage and entertain an audience. With the advent of feminism, words and phrases such as one-woman show and comedienne have entered the modern-day lexicon....

 portraying Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

 Jack Unterweger

Jack Unterweger

Johann "Jack" Unterweger was an Austrian serial killer who murdered prostitutes in several countries. First convicted of a 1974 murder, he was released in 1990 due in part to a campaign by intellectuals and politicians, who regarded Unterweger as an example of rehabilitation...

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Recordings

The group have released several recordings on the German New Classical Adventure

New Classical Adventure

New Classical Adventure, commonly referred to as NCA, is a classical music record label based in Hamburg, Germany....

 label, including works by Teleman, Handel

HANDEL

HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....

, and Vivaldi.