The Dinner Party (Newton) (CANCELED)

“The Dinner Party”  is an ensemble gathered around a dinner table singing as after dinner entertainment in a salon setting. The only woman we know of in the Italian baroque to achieve some level of fame in her time and who was NOT a nun was Barbara Strozzi.  Her part songs for 3-6 voices are complex, soaring, and wondrous to behold. We pair her with a teenager of the Renaissance, composer Vittoria Aleotti, who wrote a set of 18 madrigals at the age of 14. Vittoria’s father published them after she entered her local convent. Part-songs by Rebecca Clarke and Fanny Mendelssohn act as amuse-bouches throughout the evening. With Catherine Liddell and Charles Iner, theorbos and baroque guitars, Na’ama Lion, flute, Nancy Hurrell, harp, and Mike Williams, percussion.