Daniel Swenberg
(PRINCETON, NJ) -- The Dryden Ensemble looks forward to welcoming audiences back for its second season under Artistic Director Daniel Swenberg. This year, the Princeton-based ensemble continues its unique pay-what-you-can approach—performing without tickets or admission fees—and invites audiences to support the music they love through donations.
The opening program, Daydreams (and Dictators), takes place Saturday, November 15, 2025 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 50 Cherry Hill Road (off Route 206) in Princeton. Showtime is 4:00pm.
Performers include soprano Laura Heimes, Daniel Swenberg on lute and theorbo, Vita Wallace on Baroque violin, Lisa Terry on viola da gamba, and Caitlyn Koester on harpsichord.
Laura Heimes
Swenberg dedicates this concert to the memory of Jack Tomlinson, longtime board member, treasurer, and great supporter of the Dryden Ensemble.
“The idea for our first program came to me over the summer, as our current fraught and foolish politics made me want to escape,” Swenberg shared. “I thought of the slow river and perfumed air, the songs of Armide’s enchanted forest—of Lully’s intoxicating music. I thought of how we all could stand to get away. Politics and fantasy. Daydreams and dictators.”
The concert explores the flourishing musical cultures of Versailles (Louis XIV), Dresden (August the Strong), and Berlin (Frederick the Great) in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the Renaissance and Baroque eras, rulers were not only political leaders but also highly educated patrons who used art as an expression of power—hiring the greatest performers, composers, poets, and painters to elevate their courts and shape their legacies. “These tyrants had taste,” Swenberg quipped. “And this music soothes, excites, and hopefully allows us to escape—musical daydreams.”
The program includes the “Sommeil” (sleep/dream) scenes from Lully’s operas, arranged by the ensemble into chamber versions that transport listeners into dreamlike beauty, free from care. Also featured are Marais’s moving Tombeau for Lully, C. P. E. Bach’s Sonata for Solo Flute, and Sylvius Leopold Weiss’s Sonata “Le fameux corsaire” (The Famous Pirate)—each work a reflection of the opulent, imaginative sound worlds of Baroque Europe.
Following Daydreams (and Dictators), the Dryden Ensemble continues its season with Lachrimæ: In Praise of Tears on January 31, a celebration of songwriters John Dowland and Franz Schubert, and La Conversation on February 28, featuring trios for lute, lautenwerk (lute-harpsichord), and violin. All performances take place at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Princeton.
Admission to all concerts is free; donations are warmly encouraged to support the ensemble’s mission of bringing historically informed Baroque music to the Princeton community.
The Dryden Ensemble is a not-for-profit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and a registered charity in New Jersey. For information on how to become a supporter or sponsor of the Dryden Ensemble visit drydenensemble.org.
