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Arts Intel Report

Aesthesis Quartet, Peter Corser: Birds

May 26–31, 2026

The soprano Lucie Minaudier, the mezzo Céleste Lejeune, the tenor Abel Zamora, and the bass Jonas Mordzinski—collectively the Aesthesis Quartet—join forces with the saxophonist Peter Corser in a kaleidoscopic celebration of birds. The program name-checks swans, nightingales, swallows, blackbirds, and bluebirds in selections by Orlando Gibbons, a favorite of James I; the prodigy Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, who enjoyed the patronage of Louis XIV; Pau (or Pablo) Casals, the legendary cellist and Catalan firebrand; and the Beatles, who need no introduction. The tour bounces around the southern French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, winding up in Domme, a fortified hill town founded in 1281 by the warlike Philip the Bold. Numbered today among the most beautiful villages in France, Domme also has a reputation as “the Acropolis of the Périgord.” Expect great numbers of lucky expats who summer in the Dordogne to flock there for the music. —Matthew Gurewitsch