The Magdalene Project: The Ecstasy in Music

Program IV

The Magdalene Project: The Ecstasy in Music

Dates 2012:

*Thursday, April 5th – 4:00pm*
Friday, April 13th – 7:30pm-9:00pm
Sunday, April 15th – 2:00pm-3:30pm

Venue: Art Gallery of Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church
* Institute for Advanced Studies, (Thursdays at Four) University of Minnesota

Tickets: $15.00 Adults; $5.00 Students and Seniors
Tickets are available here on the website or at the door.

Mecenatismo (derived from the name of Gaio Cilnio Mecenate, 68 BCE – 8 CE) is best translated into English as patronage and indicates the general support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors.

In her book Echoes of Women’s Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence, Kelley Harness suggests that patronage can be viewed then as a means of communication in which a variety of individuals, some in competition with one another, took part in the conversation. “Poets, composers, singers, instrumentalists, painters and architects as well as seamstresses, carpenters and masons, all participated in the overall product. …during the early modern period in Florence, the city resounded with the echoes of women’s voices and at least some of their messages were communicated by means of artistic patronage.”

The Archduchess Maria Magdalena was one such patron. As the Grand Duchess of Tuscany (beginning with her husband’s accession in 1609) and, after his death in 1621, as co-regent with her mother-in-law (Christine of Lorraine), the archduchess assumed an active role as a patron, commissioning and participating in artistic activities held in a wide variety of venues, including Medici palaces, private villas, and several of Florence’s female monasteries.

This spring production of Consortium Carissimi is entitled the Magdalene Project. Dr. Harness provides the historical framework within which we explore the name of Mary Magdalene, the role of women in early baroque Florentine culture, and, of course, ecstasy in music. Set for eight solo voices, and period instruments of figured bass accompaniment, this excursus to Florence will include artwork projections as well as monologues and dialogues from the prose of Ferdinando Saracinelli’s, Santa Maria Maddalena trionfante in cielo (1627) and from the anonymous work of La spelonca di Marsilia, 1628.

Consortium Carissimi will perform sacred music on the subject of the Magdalene as well as sacred and secular music expressing the ecstasy in music by male composers such Marco da Gagliano, his younger brother Giovanni Battista da Gagliano, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Domenico Mazzocchi and Andrea Falconieri. The authority of the feminine is well underscored in the delightful works of female composers such as Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, and Isabella Leonarda. This production appropriately closes the fifth season of music making in the Twin Cities metro area, intentionally bringing to post-modern-day ears music that both communicates and invites the listener to “take part in the conversation.”

The Ensemble

Singers

Soprano

Kristi Bergland, Linh Kauffman

Alto

Susan Druck, KrisAnne Weiss

Tenor

Steve Staruch, Craig Lemming

Bass

Douglas Shambo II, Garrick Comeaux

Theorbo

Paul Berget

Archlute

Tom Walker

Viola da gamba

Mary Burke

Harpsichord

Donald Livingston

Lenten Oratories: Music of Bonifazio Graziani & Giacomo Carissimi

Program III

Lenten Oratories: Music of Bonifazio Graziani & Giacomo Carissimi

Dates 2012:

Friday, February 24th – 8:00pm-9:30pm

*Saturday, February 25th – 7:30pm-9:00pm*

Sunday, February 26th – Intermezzo at 1:00, with Concert from 2:00pm-3:30pm

Read more

Concert II – Spaniards in Rome: Music of Tomás Luis de Victoria

In celebration of the 400^th Anniversary of his death

Repertory:

Music for All Saints and All Souls of the two Spaniards in Rome: Tomás de Victoria’s Requiem and Cristóbal de Morales’ Dialogue Motets.

Dates 2011:
Friday, November 11th – 7:30pm-9pm
Sunday, November 13th – 2pm-3:30pm

Venue: The Chapel of St. Mary at The Saint Paul Seminary in St. Paul, MN Read more

St. Louis in Rome: The Influence of Italian Baroque in France September 16 &18

Program I

St. Louis in Rome: The Influence of Italian Baroque in France

Dates: Friday, September 16th from 7:30pm-9:00pm

Sunday, September 18th from 2:00pm-3:30pm

Venue: The Chapel of St. Mary at The Saint Paul Seminary in St. Paul, MN

Repertory: Music of Carissimi’s most illustrious student, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, and Italian composers such as Bernardo Pasquini, Vincenzo Ugolini, Antonio Cifra and the violinist, Arcangelo Corelli, who were all active at the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in early-baroque Rome. Read more