Above: Clara Peeters (Flemish, ca. 1587–1636), A Bouquet of Flowers (detail), ca. 1612, Oil on wood. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Our 2017–2018 Season: Women's Voices
Sonnambula presented a concept season in 2017–2018: Women's Voices. Prompted by a desire to respond to our political climate, each concert of 2017–2018 was devoted to work by female composers from the early modern period. In so doing, we perform a quintessential task of feminist musicology: shifting the point of power away from a domineering force and toward a minority voice—letting it sound, and letting it speak.
Here are some highlights.
Here are some highlights.
Hispanic Women Composers
A series of free concerts with the Hispanic Society of America
A series of free concerts with the Hispanic Society of America
Angelica Kauffmann, Portrait of Eleanor, Countess of Lauderdale (detail), c. 1780–81 © MFA Houston
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This concert featured the music of Marianna Martínes (1744–1812). Martínes was the daughter of Spanish immigrants to Vienna at the height of Viennese classicism. Recognized for her talents by the court poet Metastasio, a neighbor, Martínes was enrolled in music lessons with Haydn. Once she mastered the harpsichord she was a favorite four-hand keyboard partner of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Who was Marianna Martínes? A rare concert and lecture will began to answer this question and brought necessary attention to another overlooked female composer from the Hispanic diaspora. |
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This concert took place on Thursday, December 21, at 7, and a lecture was given by Elizabeth Weinfield at 6:30. Our audience learned about Leonora Duarte, converso identity in the Iberian diaspora, and the remarkable circumstances that allowed for the creation and survival of Duarte's music. And what a treat it was to perform in the gorgeous library at the Academy! |
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Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring (Flemish, 1665)
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In this concert, we presented the music of acclaimed French baroque composer, Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665–1729). As a young child, the prodigious Jacquet astonished adults — including King Louis XIV — with her ability to compose and improvise at the keyboard. She composed sonatas, songs, cantatas, and even an opera, the first by a woman to be performed in Paris. Our goal this evening is not only to introduce you to Jacquet's music, something of which many of you may, indeed, already know — but to present her work in context rather than in isolation, and to reveal how she was influential to her contemporaries rather than the other way around, which is so often the narrative in discussions of female composers. A very active teacher in Paris, Jacquet wrote music whose influence is seen strongly in works by her contemporaries, among them Michel-Richard de Lalande, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, and Henri Dumont.
