2019 Summer Concert Season

June 25-27 Serafina

In Their Own Words

In this program, we hear from early female composers, such as Hildegard von Bingen, Sulpitia Cesis, and Caterina Assandra writing about women. It includes philosophical meditations on the divine nature of women. It includes the praise of feminine beauty and the complexity of love. The music is interspersed with brief readings taken from letters, diaries, and scholarly writings by the composers and their contemporaries.

July 23-25 Musica Spira

The Women Who Took the Stage

While many women were expected to learn to sing or play an instrument during the 17th and 18th centuries in order to make them more “cultured,” they were often forbidden from performing in public. Some women, however, were able to rise above social convention and became virtuosic, successful professional performers. This program celebrates the depth and quality of the performances of Letitia Cross, Anne Bracegirdle, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Sarah Bates, Barbara Strozzi, Marie-Françoise Certain, and Sara Levy in works by John Eccles, Purcell, Jacquet de la Guerre, Vivaldi, Lully, and Strozzi.

July 30 - Aug. 1 Meravelha & Peter Walker

The Lionheart

The Lionheart will be a program of medieval French songs chosen from the troubadour and trouvère repertoires that together tell a story of the life of Richard I. The performance will include unaccompanied vocal pieces, original arrangements of monody with instrumental accompaniment, and instrumental pieces on harp, vielle, winds, hurdy-gurdy, citole and percussion. Short readings to facilitate the storytelling will also be included.