Sunday Baroque Conversations

Tim Barringer, Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art at Yale University, and Eleanor Hughes, a Post-doctoral Research Associate at the Yale Center for British Art, collaborated on a comprehensive interdisciplinary project called ART & MUSIC IN BRITAIN: FOUR ENCOUNTERS 1730 TO 1900. The exhibition combines music, scores, instruments and paintings from various Yale collections, and is on view until December 31, 2006 at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, CT. They talked with Suzanne about this unique project, and especially about the first of the four "encounters," which deals with George Frideric Handel's London from the 1730s to the 1750s.

Robert Wiemken is co-director of Piffaro Renaissance Band in Philadelphia. He sat down with Suzanne to talk about his group, including explaining where the name "Piffaro" comes from. He also talked about the people and instruments in the ensemble, what it takes to find 500-year-old music to play, and gave a surprising revelation that he's not strictly a "renaissance man" in his personal musical tastes.

Recorder virtuoso Matthias Maute -- who is featured prominently on many recordings you hear regularly on Sunday Baroque -- is also a composer, arranger, conductor and music professor. He spoke with host Suzanne Bona about having to carry around a few dozen different types of recorders for every performance, how he tried (unsuccessfully) to quit playing recorder as a boy, and why being married to a fellow musician is just like running any other family business.

After decades of dealing with a condition that impaired his ability to play piano with his right hand, pianist Leon Fleisher resumed his two-hand performing with a recording called TWO HANDS. Mr. Fleisher spoke with Suzanne about his life in music, his medical condition (dystonia), and why suffering from it may have actually been a blessing in disguise.

Lutenist and music professor Rolf Lislevand talks with Suzanne about how he first became interested in music (including his early days playing electric guitar!) and his brilliant 2006 recording NUOVE MUSICHE, a Baroque music CD with thrilling improvisations that suggest jazz, Celtic and Latin music.