Appearing on Main Stage
during Baroque Opera with Salsa Sauce
October 3, 2010
Based in Houston TX, Mercury Baroque‘s participating musicians play authentic period music on historically appropriate instruments. Mercury Baroque’s highly imaginative programming includes both concerts and fully-staged operas. Mercury will reprise its last season’s ground-breaking Houston production of Lully’s opera Armide with 5 performances in Paris in September, 2010 immediately preceding performance of “La Serva Padrona” for us. Mercury has an educational outreach program that includes classroom music education in under-served elementary schools, master classes for school orchestras, performances for schoolchildren, and a series of lectures on Baroque music targeted to a general audience.
Antoine Plante – Conductor, Viola da Gamba
Praised by audiences and musicians alike for bringing Baroque music to life, Antoine Plante founded Mercury Baroque eight years ago. Plante balances a repertoire of great works with lesser-known and reconstructed pieces. His exciting musicality has made him an audience favorite. Plante has also earned a reputation for coaching musicians in period performance technique. Musicians that have worked with him form the core of a burgeoning early music performance scene in Houston.
Plante directs orchestral pieces as well as works for voice, and has conducted several operas and ballets. He worked with Dominic Walsh Dance Theater to create a score for the Dominic Walsh ballet Romeo and Juliet. Plante has conducted Handel’s complete Messiah and Water Music, as well as Caldara’s Missa Commemorationis. His opera repertoire includes Rameau’s Pygmalion and Handel’s Acis and Galatea. Not limited to Baroque pieces, his repertoire includes Classical works such as Mozart and Haydn symphonies. In addition to his work with Mercury, Plante has conducted the National Symphony of Ecuador and Atlanta Baroque.