Group of men at a table with musical instruments and food.

LONDON Salons and Taverns: Drive the Cold Winter Away - Candlelight Concert

With Hannah DePriest, soprano; and Lucas Harris, lute

performing lute songs, ballads, and instrumental airs and dances

Program

Lute songs, ballads, and instrumental airs and dances

[Watch this space for program details to come]

January 29, 7:30 pm | The Cathedral of St. Philip

January 30, 3:00 pm | Lassiter Concert Hall

January 31, 3:00 pm | Callanwolde Fine Arts Center

Favorite ABO soprano Hannah De Priest and virtuoso lutenist Lucas Harris draw listeners into the Salons and Taverns of London for an intimate romp of English ballads and lute songs intertwined with zesty instrumentals for two violins, cello and continuo. Our candlelit stages add fire and warmth to our program that will surely drive the cold winter away!"

Praise for our guest artists:

“The revelation of the concert was the Torontonian lutenist Lucas Harris, who weaved a poetic thread through his infinitely subtle interventions. The sweetness and patience of his playing . . . was astonishing.” (Le Devoir)

“From the first notes she sang, De Priest immediately distinguished herself with her versatility of vocal color, dramatic engagement, and textual clarity.” (Chicago Classical Review)

PURCHASE TICKETS

Hannah De Priest, soprano

Soprano Hannah De Priest is fast emerging as a “breakout artist” (the Boston Globe) renowned for her fearless and “masterful” (Olyrix) performances. De Priest enjoys a fast-rising global career of concert and operatic engagements. In the 2026-2027 season, she makes return appearances with Haymarket Opera (Ninfa/Proserpina, L’Orfeo), Music of the Baroque (Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Charpentier’s Te Deum), Bach in the City (Bach’s Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen and Christmas Oratorio), the Bach Society of St. Louis, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, and The Newberry Consort. She will record and perform the title role in La Stellidaura Vendicante with the Boston Early Music Festival in Bremen, Germany for the CPO label and make debuts with the Grand Rapids Symphony (Handel’s Messiah) and Saint Joseph Symphony (Holiday Cheer). Hannah currently makes her home in Philadelphia, where she lives with her husband and rescue dog, Teddy. Her “radiant” (Early Music America) debut solo album Arcadian Dreams was released in spring 2026.

Lucas Harris, lute

Lucas Harris leads a busy freelancer’s life as a lutenist, conductor, continuo player, teacher, lecturer, coach, and researcher. His collection of over twenty plucked-string instruments includes various Renaissance & Baroque lutes/guitars as well as a theorbo, cittern, bandora, an 1831 Guadagnini guitar, an 18th-century English guittar, and a PRS electric guitar with a Floyd-Rose tremolo bar.

Lucas discovered the lute during his undergraduate studies at Pomona College, where he graduated summa cum laude. He then studied early music at the Civica scuola di musica di Milano and at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen before beginning his freelancing career in New York City. For the past two decades he bases his activities in Toronto, where he serves as the regular lutenist for Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. He is a founding member of the Toronto Continuo Collective, the Vesuvius Ensemble (dedicated to Southern Italian folk music), as well as the Lute Legends Collective (an association of specialists in ancient plucked-string traditions from different cultures). Lucas plays with many ensembles in Canada and the USA and has worked in recent years with the Helicon Foundation, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, The Newberry Consort, Les Délices, and Jordi Savall / Le Concert des Nations. He is also a regular guest artist for Early Music Vancouver, and will be assistant director for EMV’s production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo in 2026 in addition to developing an EMV concert featuring Dowland’s Lachrimae alongside songs about the therapeutic power of music. Lucas teaches graduate students at the University of Toronto and Case Western Reserve University, and is also on faculty at several workshops including the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institutes, Oberlin Conservatory’s Baroque Performance Institute, and the Canadian Renaissance Music Summer School. Also a choral conductor, Lucas has been the Artistic Director of the Toronto Chamber Choir since 2014 and has developed and conducted over forty themed concert programs for the TCC. He has also been a guest director for the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, the Ohio State University Opera Program, Les voix baroques, Atalante, and the Toronto Consort. Lucas’s longstanding interest in women composers has resulted in many projects including the reconstruction of 12 solo-voice motets by Chiara Margarita Cozzolani.

ATLANTA BAROQUE ORCHESTRA

The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra is composed of top-notch artists adept at ensemble playing, and often emerging as soloists within the group. Much of the repertoire requires such talent from all of its members due to small performance forces (typically not more than sixteen musicians). In lieu of a conductor, the group performs as one organism, each player contributing to the whole that is suggestively steered by lead violinist Julie Andrijeski.

The ABO consists of a small core of musicians who live in the Atlanta area, supplemented by guest performers and featured soloists from throughout the United States and the world. The Orchestra often supplements its strong base with guest artists specializing in historically-informed Baroque performance.

In addition to its intimate yet powerful performing forces, the Orchestra’s venues are cozy compared to typical concert halls. This close proximity helps to break down the barrier between musicians and their audiences, creating a sense of cooperative interaction.

Members perform on instruments made in the Baroque era, about 1600-1750, restored to their original setups, or on authentic replicas. The string instruments, fitted with gut rather than steel strings, are played with bows of an earlier design. This allows tones and articulations that differ from “modern” instruments. Horns and trumpets have no valves. Flutes are made of wood. The harpsichord, lute, and a portable pipe organ stand in for today’s piano and guitar. But, the tuning is different. Most importantly, our musicians have ample room for improvisation and a great deal more individual expression than what is tolerated in a conventional symphony orchestra.