Brooklyn Baroque

Brooklyn Baroque debuted in the fall of 2000, when cellist David Bakamjian joined the long-standing duo of baroque flutist Andrew Bolotowsky and harpsichordist Rebecca Pechefsky. Since then, the group has performed frequently in the New York area and has been invited to play in other states across the country. The trio is the ensemble-in-residence at the eighteenth-century Morris-Jumel Mansion, where it performs in a yearly series. Brooklyn Baroque specializes in the music of Bach and his contemporaries, but its concerts often range further back into the seventeenth century or as far forward as Beethoven. About the ensemble’s debut CD, Northern Lights (QC 1005), Christopher Chaffee in the American Record Guide has written: “I cannot stop listening to this recording . . . The playing is fantastic—sensitive, well shaped, and engaging.” Brooklyn Baroque’s second recording, The Pleasures of the French (QC 1007), also won critical acclaim. See the links below to order the CD's.

Biographies

Flutist Andrew Bolotowsky studied with Elaine Schaffer, William Kincaid, and Jean-Pierre Rampal. He has performed over 3,000 solo recitals and participated in countless chamber music and orchestral concerts. He has performed with the Pan American, Westchester Philharmonic, and Brooklyn Philharmonic orchestras and has worked with Downtown Music Productions, Music Downtown, the American Festival of Microtonal Music, the Soho Baroque Opera, Muse (Colonial American Music), the Delbarton Baroque Ensemble, and New Amsterdam Baroque. Mr. Bolotowsky has been heard on radio stations WQXR, WBAI, WNCN, and WNYC; has appeared on television stations NBC, CBS, and NYC; and has recorded for Orion Recordings, Golden Age Records, Opus I, and Station Hill Records. He can be heard on the internet in Jim Theobald’s work “Above Ground” for Flute and Electronic Tape. With Rebecca Pechefsky, he has recorded the sonatas for flute and obbligato harpsichord by Johann Ludwig Krebs, which was released in the spring of 2004 on Quill Classics.


Cellist David Bakamjian performs regularly as a recitalist, chamber player, and recording artist. He has performed in New York’s premier concert halls, appeared several times on National Public Radio and WQXR, and was a winner or finalist in four international chamber music competitions. As a baroque cellist, he has appeared with the Four Nations Ensemble and Long Island Baroque. While a member of the Casa Verde Trio, Mr. Bakamjian completed six critically acclaimed national tours as well as a month-long tour of China. He earned his bachelor of arts degree from Yale University, where he studied with Aldo Parisot, and his master of music and doctor of musical arts degrees at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he studied with Timothy Eddy and Bernard Greenhouse. An experienced and dedicated chamber music coach, he is on the faculty at Lehigh University and has served on the faculties of Summertrios at Moravian College, Princeton Play Week in New Jersey, and the Summer String-In at Monmouth University.

Born in New York City, Rebecca Pechefsky has degrees from Columbia University, Queens College, and the CUNY Graduate Center. A founding member of Brooklyn Baroque, she has performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall; in series such as Music at Morris-Jumel, Bach at Zion, and the Miami Bach Society; at the Boston Early Music Festival and the Harpsichord Center of Southern California. Ms. Pechefsky has premiered works by Frank J. Oteri, Louis Pelosi, Mary Inwood, Johnny Reinhard, and Ben Yarmolinsky. In March, she gave the world premiere of Graham Lynch’s “Petenera” at the Aliénor Competition in Winston-Salem, NC. For Quill Classics she has recorded the complete harpsichord works of François d'Agincour, as well as “Bach and his Circle,” featuring the music of Bach and his contemporaries. Currently organist at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Glendale, Queens, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Erik Ryding, with whom she has coauthored Bruno Walter: A World Elsewhere, winner of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award.

Upcoming Concerts

Brooklyn Baroque ventures forward into the classical period with works by Haydn, Boccherini, C. P. E. Bach, Friedrich Benda, and Franz Xaver Richter:

April 6, 2 PM, at the Middletown Thrall Library, Middletown, NY.
May 17, 3 PM, at Music at Morris-Jumel, New York, NY.

The Pleasures of the French
Northern Lights
Morris-Jumel Mansion

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