Founded in 2006, Divertimenti is an ensemble in Northern California which plays Baroque chamber music on period instruments and draws upon its participating & guest musicians, as the changing repertoire requires and schedules permit.
2020-2022: The pandemic had forced changes, of course, and we began playing once or twice a week "en plein air" except for household members who could sit in a room with French doors opening onto a open-air terrace where they sat spaced apart. But then at the end of 2020 the weather and the pandemic situation caused a hiatus and we were forced to cease playing.
However, by the spring of 2021 all of us had been fully vaccinated, and we were able to resume playing with appropriate precautions (e.g. ventilation). Indeed, we gave two garden concerts in July in conjunction with other groups in which the musicians played on the rear terrace and the (limited) audience was seated in the rear garden.
Pictured above left: Art Ungar (on terrace, Baroque bassoon), Jack O'Neill (in libary, recorder) and Mary Ellen Reed (on terrace, harpsichord); and above right Suzanne Siebert (in library, Baroque oboe), Alyssa Quiogoe (in library, violin) and Mardi Sicular (voice flute) on terrace.
And then in early 2022 and again in late December 2022 we were able to perform at the respective Open Mics, pictured below:
Pictured above, left to right: Suzanne Siebert (Baroque oboe), Mary Ellen Reed and Barry Hirsch (recorders), Mardi Sicular (harpsichord) and Heather Wilson (bass viola da gamba).
Pictured above, left to right: Heather Wilson (bass viola da gamba), Mary Ellen Reed (digital harpsichord), Barry Hirsch (alto recorder) Karen Lassen (violin) and Suzanne Siebert (tenor recorder)