SONNAMBULA

Ensemble photography by Tatiana Daubek (above), Paula Lobo, and Teju Cole

Passing Fancy

Beauty in a Moment of Chaos

Thursday, December 19, at 6pm

Columbia University
St. Paul's Chapel
1160 Amsterdam Ave NYC 10027

In-person and streamed live on YouTube

All guests must register by 11am Wed, 12/18. Register HERE.

Women in Art and Music:

An Early Modern Global

Conference and Concert

Three days of talks, performances, and lecture recitals across two institutions in a historic partnership between The National Gallery of Art and The Juilliard School. Join us!

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Highlights from our Tenth Anniversary Season

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and her Maidservant, 1625, Detroit Institute of Arts

VIEW THE SEASON

Sonnambula's first CD, "Leonora Duarte (1610–1678): The Complete Works," was released on JUNE 7 (2019; Centaur Records). The first complete recording of Duarte's seven Sinfonias (rec. 2016), and the first record for us, it's a tremendous honor to bring the works to life. The disc features a spoken essay by Teju Cole and is artfully mastered by Marlan Barry. Here is a preview track:

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Image © The New Yorker. Illustration by Cristiana Couceiro.

Alex Ross's beautiful meditation on our Duarte concert with Teju Cole at The Cloisters — from the February 18/25, 2019 issue of The New Yorker:

"The absence of historical celebrities hardly hurt attendance... It’s tempting to describe the Sinfonias as jewel-like in construction. You could also compare them to Vermeer’s paintings, small in scale and infinite in depth... For a remarkable hour on a cold February night, their world came alive again."

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RECENT HIGHLIGHTS

2018–2019 Ensemble-in-Residence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

View the Met Season.

Photos of Sonnambula at The Cloisters are by Paula Lobo for The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sonnambula performs rare old music written for the viola da gamba (viol) and similar instruments.

Those of us who grew up playing music are likely more familiar with what music historians call "violin family" instruments—violins, violas, and cellos—in a modern setup, with innovations that have evolved over the last two hundred years to fill modern concert halls with sound: steel strings, end pins, chin rests, and modern bows.

Viols possess none of these artifacts of industrialization. Their delicate bodies are made with thin slabs of wood, strung with gut strings and frets, and are played da gamba, or 'on the leg'. In short, these instruments are meant for the court, for the domestic interior, and for the cultivation of a quiet beauty, the sort of which is difficult to come by in today's loud and fast-paced world.