Filament + Alice Teyssier: Bound Up in Love

Embodying a conscious shift of focus and intention away from established norms, Bound Up in Love centers the lives and work of female composers and musicians, and interrogates our collective understanding of women in music history and the ways we tell women’s stories through mythology. This collaboration between the Philadelphia early music trio Filament and Franco-American soprano Alice Teyssier places works by Isabella Leonarda, Barbara Strozzi, and Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre in dialogue with those of Henry Purcell and Tarquinio Merula, employing the juxtaposition of different national and compositional styles to cast a fresh light on the singular human conditions of love, grief, longing, and motherhood. Bound Up in Love creates space to tell ancient stories in a new way. PARTICIPANTS Filament is a chamber ensemble, formed in 2019, of Philadelphia-based period-instrument soloists. Comprising a core trio of violin, viola da gamba, and keyboards, its respective founding members are Evan Few, Elena Kauffman, and John Walthausen. As a collective, its mission is to be the bright connective thread—that eponymous filament—linking the world of its audience with that of its repertoire, illuminating the delightful, sometimes uncanny familiarity of the emotions and images it evokes. Filament is building a reputation as a leading proponent and champion of 17th- and 18th-century chamber music. The Broad Street Review praised Filament for a “fervor and delight that make early music seem current, and easy, joyful communication,” and the Lancaster News noted Filament’s “profound understanding” of its repertoire. Filament’s programs bridge the gap between music from some of history’s most celebrated and familiar composers and music that is completely unknown. Recent concerts have featured unpublished music by anonymous composers, Filament’s own original transcriptions, and music by female composers. Filament presents concerts in its core formation and in collaboration with other musicians in Philadelphia, the Delaware Valley, and across the country. In its hometown, Filament performs on numerous concert series, including Bowerbird, Main Line Early Music, and the PhilaLandmarks Early Music Series, and in self-presented concerts in a variety of sacred and secular spaces, including Gloria Dei “Old Swedes” Church and the Fleisher Art Memorial. Regionally, Filament has been featured on Gotham Early Music Scene’s Midtown Concert Series and Musae (New York, NY); Early Music at St. James (Lancaster, PA), Market Street Music’s Festival Concerts (Wilmington, DE), Concerts at Locktown Stone Church (Flemington, NJ), and Immanuel Concerts at Immanuel on the Green (New Castle, DE). Recent performances in South Carolina, Florida, and New Orleans have expanded Filament’s reach. In 2024, FIlament released its first album, Alchemy of Another , featuring the complete trio sonatas, opus 1, of Dietrich Buxtehude, on the Bridge label. Alchemy of Another was lauded by the press, including in the music industry magazine Fanfare , which gave the album five stars and characterized Filament’s renditions of Buxtehude’s music as “brilliantly executed and artistically satisfying on all levels.” Alice Teyssier brings “something new, something fresh, but also something uncommonly beautiful” to her performances. Most comfortable in dualities, she is a soprano and a flutist, performs old works and new, is equally comfortable on stage as in the classroom and maintains her French language and culture here in the United States. A uniquely gifted advocate for new music, Alice has premiered hundreds of works and is currently composing her first large-scale work. Equally devoted to historically-informed yet inventive performances of early music, she was co-founder of the chamber ensemble La Perla Bizzarra. She has earned degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Conservatoire de Strasbourg in France and the University of California-San Diego. Currently, she is a core member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, the interdisciplinary troupe The Atelier and the experimental jazz quartet SYMPHONY, and serves as Clinical Associate Professor of Performance in the Music Department at New York University. She resides in Brooklyn with her husband Bradley and their two small children and enjoys baking sourdough bread and brewing kombucha.