During the summer, Leipzig coffee house proprietor Gottfried Zimmerman hosted informal concerts led by Bach and Telemann in his gardens just outside the city walls. Our Summer Concert and Soirée celebrates this tradition and the legacy of board member Robert Zimmerman with beautiful music and delicious food at Bartram’s Garden, America’s oldest living botanical garden and a National Historic Landmark.

During the baroque era, Bohemia more or less disappeared from map of European culture. But invisibly, it made its presence known. Those big European capitals of the baroque world—Dresden, Berlin, London, Paris—were well enriched by talent from the hinterlands.

We close our Season of Seasons with a visit to the Bohemian court of Count Václav z Morzinu, to whom Vivaldi dedicated The Four Seasons. Alongside the shimmering heat, boreal winds and lightning storms depicted in Summer, we perform music by Czech composers Samuel Capricornus, Philipp Jakob Rittler, Jan Dismas Zelenka and Václav Antonín Stamitz.

It’s the last show of Tempesta di Mare’s year of the The Four Seasons. Banish those thoughts of lazy days and clinking ice in cold drinks. In Summer, Vivaldi takes us stormchasing for one of the most thrilling rides in instrumental music.