Baroque Threads: A Journey from Venice to Persia

Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum is delighted to welcome the Filo Rosso Society, a new Pacific Northwest collective dedicated to following the hidden threads that connect music across time and culture, for their inaugural Folio performance in collaboration with Iranian violinist Shaghayegh Taheri.

Taheri (violin) joins founder Libby Phelps (violin), Ross Gilliland (baroque bass), and Daniel Frizzell (lute) for a program that begins in seventeenth-century Venice. Perched at the crossroads of East and West, Venice was a city where the emerging Baroque style was shaped by centuries of Eastern musical tradition, above all a culture of improvisation that would become central to the violin music of Vivaldi and his contemporaries. From there, the program traces the artistic conversation between Venice and Persia into the present day, with new works by contemporary Persian women composers written for Baroque instruments, reimagining ancient traditions for modern ears.

Violinist Elizabeth “Libby” Phelps, whose playing has…