Aaron Grad & Augustine Mercante

Old-Fashioned Love Songs features music composed and arranged by Aaron Grad, as well as a unique instrument he designed and built—an electric theorbo—which crosses a modern electric guitar with a fourteen-string bass lute from the sixteenth century. The performance mixes original compositions with arrangements of love songs spanning six centuries, from John Dowland and Henry Purcell to George Gershwin and Norah Jones. Countertenor Augustine Mercante (praised as “glowing” by The New York Times) brings a new sheen to a voice type associated with centuries past, reinforcing the message of Old-Fashioned Love Songs: that love, and the music that celebrates it, is timeless.