Strawberry Fields // Emi Ferguson, Rachell Ellen Wong, Ruckus // Camerata Pacifica Baroque (1)

While Handel and Sancho never met each other, they inhabited the same world and shared one thing for certain: the transcendent joy that comes from a life of music and dance with good company.  And if there is one thing that encapsulates the joy of togetherness in 18th-century England it was the English Country Dance. Sweating, laughing, spinning, holding hands…. Propelled onwards by the unrelenting groove of the music.

Strawberry Fields interweaves Emi, Rachell, and Ruckus' arrangements of Handel's trio sonatas with Ignatius Sancho's 12 Country Dances. Sancho, a pivotal figure in 18th-century London, was not only one of the first Black musicians to publish compositions but also likely the first British African to vote. His grocery shop in Westminster became a hub for discussions on politics, music, dance, and the arts with Sancho's powerful writings on slavery galvanizing the English abolition movement. This performance promises to be a foot-stomping celebration of…