The Kansas City Baroque Consortium has been one of the city’s cultural jewels since 2009, specializing in the performance of early music on period instruments. In a special afternoon concert, the ensemble offers a rich selection of late-17^th century music that reflects the role of the royal Habsburg court in Vienna as a crossroads of European culture.

The program features the works of four notable Central European composers: Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Johann Joseph Fux, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, and Georg Muffat.

The Austrian branch of the house of Habsburg – split from the “senior” Spanish branch of the longtime dynasty – ruled from the capital of Vienna and transformed the city into a center of European music. Influenced by an influx of Italian musicians, popular French dance, and the musical styles of carnival festivities, composers explored a new sonic realism that spawned inventiveness in their works and resonated across Europe.

The Baroque Consortium performance revisits that inspired time.