Ensemble photography by Tatiana Daubek (above), Paula Lobo, and Teju Cole
Welcome to our 2022–2023 Season
Announcing Women in Art and Music: An Early Modern Global Conference
The Juilliard School, NYC
The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
October 2023
The Juilliard School, NYC
The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
October 2023
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Sunday, November 13, 2022, 1 & 3PM A Portrait in Music: Sounding the Dutch Baroque The National Gallery of Art West Building, Main Floor-West Garden Court 6th Street and Constitution Ave NW Washington, DC 20565 Join us for our debut at the National Gallery of Art as we explore the exceptional music of the Low Countries in the long seventeenth century. Using Dutch and Flemish paintings as our inspiration, in particular those of Vermeer, we will present five sonic portraits of musical life. |
Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664, The National Gallery of Art, DC
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Highlights from our Tenth Anniversary Season
Highlights from our Tenth Anniversary 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:
Image © The New Yorker. Illustration by Cristiana Couceiro.
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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." |
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.
2017–2018 highlights
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Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665–1729): Musician in Paris |
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Divertimento in D Maj; K 136
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Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 49 in F Minor; Hob 1:49
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Live at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Audience looks on at The Hispanic Society of America, New York City
