Our Coffee Concert series features members of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale performing on period instruments and in the style of the time, for a listening experience close to what audiences might have heard in the 18th-century salons and coffeehouses of Europe. Enjoy the music—and your coffee!
☕ Your Bite-Sized Program Notes
Luigi Boccherini – Quintet for Guitar and Strings in E Minor, No. 7, G.451
Italian composer and cellist Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805) spent much of his career in Spain, where he served as composer and cellist to the household of the Infante Don Luis, brother of King Charles III. While Mozart and Haydn are better known today, Boccherini was one of the most admired chamber music composers of his generation.
Unlike most of Boccherini’s chamber music, these works feature guitar alongside the strings. Rather than treating the guitar as a solo instrument, Boccherini folds it into the conversation, allowing it to trade ideas with the strings and add rhythmic character to the ensemble. Written for musicians in aristocratic salons and private gatherings, this music offers a glimpse into the kind of intimate performances that would have been heard in the homes of music lovers across Europe.
Luigi Boccherini – Quintet for Guitar and Strings in D Major, No. 4, G.448, “Fandango”
If one piece has kept Boccherini’s name before the public, it is the famous “Fandango” Quintet. The nickname comes from the final movement, based on a popular Spanish dance known for its driving rhythms and irresistible energy. Audiences have been responding to it for more than two centuries.
The work is also a reminder that eighteenth-century composers didn’t live in a world divided between “classical” and “popular” music. Just as composers today borrow from folk, jazz, or popular traditions, Boccherini drew inspiration from the music he heard around him. The result is a chamber work that feels equally at home in a concert hall, a salon, or a coffeehouse.
🎻 About Today’s Performers
Elizabeth Blumenstock – Violin
Elizabeth Blumenstock has been a cornerstone of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale since its founding in 1982, serving as concertmaster, soloist, and artistic leader for more than four decades. She is also a long-time leader of the American Bach Soloists, concertmaster of the International Handel Festival in Göttingen, Germany, and artistic director of the Baroque Music Festival Corona del Mar. Her love of chamber music has led to collaborations with many acclaimed ensembles, including Ars Lyrica Houston, Galax Quartet, Musica Pacifica, Sarasa, Ensemble Mirable, Live Oak Baroque, and Voices of Music. Blumenstock joined the faculty of Juilliard’s Historical Performance program in 2016 and also teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, American Bach Soloists’ Summer Festival and Academy, and the Valley of the Moon Music Festival.
Maxine Nemerovski – Violin
Violinist Maxine has performed across Europe, South America, and Brazil, appearing with ensembles ranging from Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra to the Jacksonville Symphony and even Led Zeppelin. She has created children’s concerts in Ireland, taught violin pedagogy in Nicaragua, and recorded for orchestral, film, commercial, and pop projects. An experienced educator, she has taught privately for over 30 years and served on the faculties of the Community Music Center, French American International School, and International High School. She plays on a violin by David Tecchler, Rome, Italy, 1733.
Gail Hernández Rosa – Viola
Gail Hernández Rosa grew up in Puerto Rico, where music is a strong part of everyday life, and her love for music started at a young age. Supported by her father’s fascination with classical music and his training as a baritone, she started violin lessons at the age of three and voice lessons when she was six. Her career has taken her all over the world, living on several continents and performing with groups such as the Gabrieli Consort, Florilegium and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Gail’s interest in period instrument performance led her to London where she gained a master’s degree from the Royal Academy of Music, making her the first violinist from her island to specialize in historical performance. Thanks to her cultural immersion, Scottish bonds and Galician heritage, her love affair with Baroque and Celtic folk music further blossomed, inspiring her to co-found the Bay-Area-based chamber ensemble Beneath A Tree. Gail is based in Northern California and performs with American Bach Soloists, Washington Bach Consort, Philharmonia Baroque, Bach Collegium San Diego, Ars Minerva and Voices of Music. She leads Marin Baroque and Opera Neo, serves as concertmaster for Lakeside Symphony, and has an active career as a soloist and chamber musician. She was voted the Bay Area’s 2025 Favorite Instrumental Recital winner in the San Francisco Classical Voice Audience Awards for her performance of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with Marin Baroque. Gail has a strong yoga and meditation practice. She loves cooking, hiking, open water swimming and laughing out loud at the many wonders that life offers.
David Morris – Violoncello
Dubbed a “continuo wizard” by Gramophone (UK), David Morris is a member of Quicksilver and the Galax Quartet. He has performed with Musica Pacifica, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Tragicomedia, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Tafelmusik, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Musica Angelica, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, the Mark Morris Dance Group and Seattle’s Pacific Musicworks. He was the founder and musical director of the Bay Area baroque opera ensemble Teatro Bacchino, and has produced operas for the Berkeley Early Music Festival, San Francisco Early Music Society series and the Amherst Early Music Workshop. Mr. Morris received his B.A. and M.A. in Music from U.C. Berkeley, and has been a guest instructor in early music performance-practice at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Mills College, Oberlin College, the Madison Early Music Festival and Cornell University.
Marc Teicholz – Guitar
Marc Teicholz, classical guitarist, is the first prize-winner of the 1989 International Guitar Foundation of America competition. Marc Teicholz has toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, receiving critical acclaim for his recitals and masterclasses. Mr. Teicholz has toured Russia, Poland, and Switzerland as well as Southeast Asia, Fiji, and New Zealand under the auspices of the U.S.I.A. Artistic Ambassador program. He has recorded several CDs for Naxos, Delos, and Sugo, as well as the pilot soundtrack for George Lucas’ “Young Indiana Jones.” He also premiered a new concerto by Clarice Assad dedicated to him in 2016. Marc Teicholz is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and at California State University East Bay. He graduated from Yale University in 1985, received a master’s degree from the Yale School of Music in 1986, and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley at the Boalt School of Law in 1990.
Please Join Us Again
If you enjoyed today’s performance, please join us again at our upcoming concerts each featuring a fresh selection of Baroque and Classical works.
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale is one of America’s leading early music ensembles, performing on period instruments and faithful replicas modeled after those used from the 17th to 19th centuries. The full orchestra—often joined by the Philharmonia Chorale—performs across the Bay Area at Herbst Theatre (SF), First Congregational Church (Berkeley), and on the Peninsula at Bing Concert Hall at Stanford and First United Methodist Church in Palo Alto.
Explore the 2026/27 season at philharmonia.org. Tickets start at $40, or just $96 for a three-concert package. $20 tickets are available for students and patrons under 30.
