Dolcissima Speranza: Featuring Thomas Cooley

The Washington Bach Consort welcomes Thomas Cooley, the internationally acclaimed tenor whose vivid artistry and mastery of early music have made him a leading interpreter of Baroque and pre‑Baroque repertoire worldwide. With a career spanning more than two decades across major stages including Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, and Berlin Philharmonie, Cooley brings exceptional dramatic instinct and stylistic command to this exploration of the Baroque’s earliest flowering.
This richly curated program traces the emergence of a new musical language in early seventeenth‑century Italy—from the pioneering works of Jacopo Peri, Giulio Caccini, and Claudio Monteverdi, whose Seconda Prattica reshaped expressive possibility, to the striking originality of Sigismondo d’India and Barbara Strozzi. With Cooley as guide, audiences will encounter the intensity, rhetorical daring, and evolving vocal aesthetic that gave rise to the Baroque.