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"To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make." - Truman Capote

La Sfera Armoniosa, founded in 1992, is a Dutch Baroque ensemble and orchestra specialized in the performance of music from the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Artistic director and conductor is Mike Fentross. In addition to the music of famous composers such as Monteverdi, Haendel and Vivaldi, the ensemble undertakes research into the manuscripts and printed works of the European libraries in order to provide a rich spectrum of music from lesser known composers. The English music magazine Gramophone wrote about their first cd: “How soon will we hear the enchanting La Sfera Armoniosa again, and what fresh buried treasure will they unearth?” La Sfera Armoniosa is known and praised for it’s lively and colourful sound and for its groundbreaking programmes. They created in 2004 a Schoenberg/ Monteverdi programme that they performed with great success in the Utrecht Early Music Festival and they performed modern world premiers from three almost forgotten opera’s: La Rosinda, l’Ipermestra and Granida. In 2012 the Concertgebouw asked La Sfera to design and perform a special program, the Amsterdam musical life before the concerthall was build, for their 125th anniversary.
La Sfera Armoniosa performed in main festivals and concert halls such as: Festival van Vlaanderen, Festival d’Ambronay, Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Music Center Vredenburg, Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci, Monteverdi festival Cremona, Festival de Musica Portico de Zamora, Festival Musica Antiqua Bruges, and the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam.
About their performance of the opera La Rosinda by Francesco Cavalli in Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci the press wrote: "This evening, the orchestra has proven that it is amongst the leading baroque orchestras. I will not soon forget the nuances that came from the orchestra pit. That was great art. Nothing more and nothing less."

Featured on

George Frideric Händel
Freedom - Oratorio Arias
La Sfera Armoniosa | Oscar Verhaar | Mike Fentross
Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer
VI Concerti Armonici
Mike Fentross | La Sfera Armoniosa
Pieter Hellendaal
Six Grand Concertos Op. 3
La Sfera Armoniosa / Mike Fentross / Lidewij van der Voort
Willem de Fesch
Concerti Grossi & Violin Concertos
La Sfera Armoniosa / Mike Fentross / Lidewij van der Voort
Francesco Cavalli
L'Ipermestra
La Sfera Armoniosa / Mike Fentross
Henry Purcell
Symphony While The Swans Come Forward
Mike Fentross / Johannette Zomer / La Sfera Armoniosa

Videos

Mike Fentross - La Sfera Armoniosa
La Sfera Armoniosa - Mike Fentross - Pieter Hellendaal