Mezzo-soprano Mary Gerbi is a versatile soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble member whose repertoire ranges from medieval chant to new music premieres. As an oratorio soloist, her recent performances include Haydn’s Salve Regina and Britten’s Ceremony of Carols with Boston Cecilia, Corigliano’s Fern Hill with the Maryland Choral Society, and Handel’s Judas Maccabeus with the Berkshire Bach Society. As a performer of baroque opera, she performed the title role in Amherst Early Music’s production of A. Scarlatti’s La Principessa Fedele last summer, and portrayed Elisa in Maria Teresa Agnesi’s Sofonisba with La Donna Musicale last spring. In high demand as an ensemble member, she sings regularly with the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Emmanuel Music, and numerous other groups. A skilled interpreter of early music, Ms. Gerbi is a founding member of the renaissance octet Cut Circle, which will soon release a double CD of Franco-Flemish polyphony with Musique en Wallonie. She has toured internationally with the Liber Ensemble for Early Music and received fellowships from the Fondazione Giorgio Cini and the Vancouver Early Music Programme. Raised in Millbrook, New York, she studied at Boston University and has resided in the Boston area ever since.
A most uncommon acknowledgment of Good Friday recalling the crucifixion of Jesus Christ occurred at Jordan Hall. It involved the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, a slate of guest soloists, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum. Two reenactments of the passion, one allegorical, by David Lang and the other, from Biblical texts, by Arvo Pärt, adopted a similar, now familiar musical language of minimalism. Both passions were fittingly in minor modes commonly associated with all things sorrowful.