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 Summer 2011 - LISTEN Magazine Apollo's Fire approaches folk music with a period-informed twist exploring the close relationship between folk and Baroque… May 2011 - GRAMOPHONE Magazine (UK) Gramophone Magazine discusses the unique journey of Apollo's Fire, as the ensemble prepares for its second international tour and a new crossover CD release. Music Director Jeannette Sorrell and her merry band are drawing unusually large crowds from London to Santa Fe, as they joyfully break down the barriers between the formal concert hall and the early music of the taverns and countryside. March 2, 2011- THE PLAIN DEALER Veronika Skuplik is delighted to go to lengths great and otherwise on behalf of early music. The Baroque violinist lives in Oldenburg, in the north of Germany near Bremen, but travels often to France, the Netherlands and beyond to pursue her muse with major Baroque ensembles. In the fall of 2009, she came to Northeast Ohio to perform with Apollo's Fire, the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, at the invitation of artistic director Jeannette Sorrell. Skuplik is back this week to serve as guest director and soloist in a program of 17th-century music she devised for the occasion, "Mysteries: Sacred & Profane." December 2010 – BBC Music Magazine Cleveland's early music ensemble Apollo’s Fire — led by harpsichor player Jeannette Sorrell — is poised to set Europe alight, as Andrew Stewart discovers. November 14, 2010- THE PLAIN DEALER Jeannette Sorrell and Sophie Daneman have been e-mailing and phoning one another for more than a year. But until the other day, they'd never met in person, which hasn't been an impediment to their relationship. "I feel like she's some amazing old friend now," said Daneman, a British soprano celebrated for performances and recordings of Baroque music, by phone recently from her London home. November 2010 – CLASSICAL MUSIC MAGAZINE Almost 20 years ago, when Roger Wright ran the Cleveland Orchestra, he put in a call to a young conductor. It was the start of [a] story that led to one of the brightest lights of period instrument playing in the United States. Now Apollo's Fire is heading our way. Andrew Stewart talks to director Jeannette Sorrell. October 6, 2010- THE PLAIN DEALER British tenor Richard Edgar-Wilson rehearses Monteverdi's "Vespers of 1610" with Apollo's Fire and music director Jeannette Sorrell, left, for performances this week around the region. Going to vocal extremes is normal business for Richard Edgar-Wilson, an admired British tenor who sings everything from Renaissance music to works that may have been finished this morning. May 2010 - APOLLO'S/WVIZ FIRE PRESS RELEASE March 13, 2010 - THE PLAIN DEALER Apollo's Fire, the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, will make its European debut in November in Spain, the Netherlands and England. The five-concert trip will be part of the orchestra's 19th season. March 12, 2010 - APOLLO'S FIRE PRESS RELEASE March 7, 2010- THE PLAIN DEALER Playing Mozart piano concertos has never been anything but a thrill for Sergei Babayan. The admired Armenian-born pianist, an award-winning faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music, considers these works to be among the most transcendent in the classical repertoire. But Babayan is holding his keyboard breath at the moment. This week, he'll perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491, not on a modern Steinway grand, one of his preferred instruments, but on a Bluthner piano made in Leipzig, Germany, in 1877. March 2, 2010 - HEIGHTS OBSERVER Last winter, Jeannette Sorrell, founder and director of Apollo’s Fire, the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, drove down the hill from her Cleveland Heights home to conduct an all-Mozart concert at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The soloist that evening, along with the student orchestra, was acclaimed pianist and faculty member Sergei Babayan. It was a special night. “The subtlety, gesture, and blend that Jeannette drew from the ensemble were amazing” remembers Sian Ricketts, a student oboist who took part in the concert. “Sorrell is an outstanding Mozartian”, confirm the experts at Fanfare record magazine. December 9, 2009 - THE PLAIN DEALER Peter Simon was four-foot-two and nine years old when he first applied his pure boy soprano to the carol "Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!" in 2005 with Apollo's Fire, the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra. The Cleveland Heights resident today is a gangly 13-year-old ready to tackle the solo for what he and his mother, soprano Sandra Simon, are sure will be the last times. December 7, 2009 - CLEVELANDCLASSICAL.COM If you have ever attended an Apollo’s Fire concert, chances are you have heard the beautiful voices of the Apollo’s Fire Musettes. There will be 15 Musettes performing on the upcoming bi-Annual presentations of the Michael Praetorius Christmas Vespers. I had the opportunity to speak to five Musettes this past Saturday prior to a joint rehearsal with the Apollo’s Singers at Forest Hills Presbyterian Church. Although I was assured that they were a “talkative” group, I must admit that I was not sure how to prepare for the interview. But from the very beginning I found myself in the presence of five extremely self possessed, intelligent and talented young women who would, for the next thirty minutes, introduce me to an unseen part of the extraordinary work that Jeannette Sorrell is doing with Apollo’s Fire -- the mentoring of young people through music. December 2, 2009 - SCENE MAGAZINE Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant church, had a lot of interesting things to say about music. During a recent conversation about Apollo's Fire's upcoming program, Praetorius Christmas Vespers, music director Jeannette Sorrell recalled that the nailer of the 95 Theses once said, "Music is a precious gift of God. When I hear music, joy bubbles up inside me. Anyone who doesn't respond to this gift is a clod and not fit to be called a man." When a theologian uses the word "clod," it's worth investigation. According to music scholar Paul Nettl, Luther went on to say, "He should rather listen to the donkey braying of the [Gregorian] chorale or the barking of dogs and pigs, than to such music." November 6, 2009 - PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW Jeannette Sorrell took her time developing her ideas for a "Mediterranean Nights" concert program. It's not the sort of concert she usually presents. Sorrell is founding artistic director of Apollo's Fire, the Cleveland-based period-instruments orchestra that most often performs masterpieces from the classical and romantic eras. "This is going to be pretty much of a happening, different each night here in Cleveland, and will probably have changed a lot by the time we get to Pittsburgh," she says. January 29, 2009 - SCENE MAGAZINE It's about time. That's what we have to say about Apollo's Fire appearing at long last - after 16 years of performing in Northeast Ohio churches - at a church recycled into an art gallery, Josaphat Arts Hall (1433 E. 33rd St.). Jeannette Sorrell, with soloists Meredith Hall and Sumner Thompson and the Apollo's Singers Chorus, will use the former church, which houses Convivium 33 Gallery, for its production of Henry Purcell's baroque opera masterpiece, Dido and Aeneas. January 27, 2009 - THE PLAIN DEALER A handful of the singers are the same. Otherwise, the production of Henry Purcell's opera "Dido and Aeneas" that Apollo's Fire will present this weekend bears no resemblance to the one music director Jeannette Sorrell and colleagues offered in 1998 at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
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