Virtuosos of Violins and Verse at the Folger Shakespeare Library
201 East Capitol Street SE
For the first time ever, Folger Consort, the award-winning early music ensemble-in-residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the O.B. Hardison Poetry Series, one of the nation’s longest-running and renowned poetry reading series, are producing the opening program of the 2025-26 season together. Virtuosos of Violin and Verse, which celebrates the relationship between poetry and music during the 17th and 18th centuries, will take place at the Folger’s Elizabethan-style Theatre on Capitol Hill.
The program includes works by Italian composers Biagio Marini, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Michelangelo Rossi, and others. Highlights include Strozzi’s Che si può fare?and 18th-century German-English composer George Frideric Handel’s Lascia ch’io pianga. The evening will also feature Italian violin music, including Giuseppe Tartini’s sonata depicting Queen Dido’s abandonment by Aeneas, based on the Ancient Roman poet Virgil’s The Aeneid, and dramatic episodes from Baroque musical theater.
