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.
To mark Good Friday, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project brought together two contemporary Passion settings: David Lang's "The Little Match Girl Passion" and Arvo Pärt's "Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi secundum Joannem."
It did not look much like a BMOP concert – only a few instrumentalists were present. But it was an appropriately grave lineup for the darkest day of the Christian calendar.