Kansas City Baroque Consortium WOmenWOmen ofof NNoteote Saint Cecilia by NICOLAS POUSSIN (ca.1635) The Woman’s Voice as Composer, Patron, and Performer Concert III: Timeless Voices Friday, August 23 • 7:30 p.m. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church WELCome Dear Friends, Welcome to the final concert of our 2019 KC Baroque Summer Series. I am thrilled to welcome three remarkable musicans joining us for our program this evening! Soprano Victoria Botero, who is recognized for her rich, colorful voice and passionate storytelling; and harpsichordist (and musicologist) Alison DeSimone, who inspired and guided our programming in this summer’s celebration of women in music. One of the important ways KC Baroque seeks to build connections from the Baroque world to our contemporary world is through the commission of new works for old instruments. I am excited to present the award-winning local composer, Ingrid Stölzel, in tonight’s program with the premiere of “But a Day”. Our program notes give you a glimpse at Ingrid’s process in creating this new work for KCBC. What a marvelous journey it has been preparing this summer series of music that celebrates the voices of women in the Baroque era as performers, patrons and composers. Each program has brought riches to our ears. We’ve heard music written for the celebrated vocalists of the day, music written for or commissioned by two queens whose appreciation and support of the arts gives us a glimpse into the fascinating world of power, rhetoric and royalty. But it is this final concert of the season that offers us an opportunity to hear the voice of women composers: Isabella Leonarda, Francesca Caccini, Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Mademoiselle Duval, and Barbara Strozzi – born 400 years ago this month. These are voices that are rarely heard, whose works have been overlooked, forgotten, and dismissed. Among these women we have a nun, a single mother, a child prodigy, a woman of illegitimate birth, and a woman of noble birth. As women of this era were not allowed the same freedom to pursue their craft, education and a professional career as men were, we see that the success that these composers experienced was rare among women muscians. Their extraordinary talent, however, wasn’t enough to open doors. Their opportunities were provided for them, as the daughter or wife of a nobleman, as the daughter of a supportive (and socially connected) father, or as a servant of the church. Women musicians without these connections went unrecognized, and most importantly, unpublished! This evening, as we listen to their stories through the words of song, and to their unspoken joys and sorrows that ride on the melodies, rhythms and harmonies of their music, we are joining in the effort to lift the veil of obscurity that has rested on this remarkable body of work for 400 hundred years. These timeless voices speak to us across the centuries, they are as fresh, as profound, and as meaningful as any music you have heard this summer from our platform. I hope you enjoy tonight’s program, thank you for joining us this season, and please join us for the reception following in the Garden Room on the lower level. Thank you for being here! Trilla Mark Your Calendars! Baroque & BBQ!! Raise the roof and Raise some funds! An Evening of Food, Fun, and Fiddling Around! Chef Tom returns with his Award Winning BBQ & Brisket to die for! Take off your wigs, let down your hair for a great evening with foot-stompin’ friends of KC Baroque! Saturday, September 28, 6:30 -9:30 as St. Paul's Episcopal Church Kansas City Baroque COnsortiuM Board of Directors President: Eric T. Williams Treasurer: Ann Friedman, PhD Secretary: Alison DeSimone, PhD Members-at-Large: Ann Martin, PhD, Linton Bayless, MD Ensemble Representative: Carl Cook Artistic & Executive Director: Trilla Ray-Carter OuR SinceRe GraTiTuDE TO St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Rev. Dr. R. Stan Runnels, Rector; Sam Anderson, Music Director; Nicole Lux, Parish Administrator; Jose Arce, Sexton. Village Arts Alliance of Village Presbyterian Church William Breytspraak - Director of Music Ministry; Matthew Shepard - Assistant Music Director; Elisa Bickers - Associate Director of Music, Principal Organist; Carol Dale - Music Coordinator And a special thanks to our Volunteers and Board Members who work tirelessly behind the scenes: Lisa and Herb Young, George Moss, Dianne Daugherty, Lacie Eades, Ann Martin, Ann Friedman, Linton Bayless, Carl Cook, Alison DeSimone, Eric Williams, Gina Shay-Zapian, Bennett Shay-Zapian. And to: Eric Williams Photography, Ron Ray Video and Photography, Rob Patterson -3 Recording KC Program Notes, by Lacie Eades Kansas City Baroque’s 2019 summer season has illuminated the often-overlooked role of women in Early Music, taking as inspiration the 400th anniversary of the birth of Barbara Strozzi. Our June concert highlighted early modern women who performed virtuosic music in both private and public settings while our July performance recognized two women who dedicated their regal status and financial resources to support emerging music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While some works by female composers appeared on previous concerts, such as Strozzi’s works on Concert I, tonight’s performance features only compositions by women composers, including Strozzi, her contemporaries Isabella Leonarda and Francesca Caccini, and late-Baroque composers Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre and Mlle. Duval. Additionally, KC Baroque recognizes the work of contemporary female composers with the premiere of a new piece for soprano and early instruments by Ingrid Stölzel, Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Kansas. Beginning in the middle of the sixteenth century, women composers achieved greater recognition than ever before, but this acknowledgment did not automatically signal a shift in social norms. Opportunities for female singers continued to increase, but musical composition and especially music publishing remained principally male pursuits in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Tonight’s concert offers a bit of a remedy to this anonymity through the music of some of the women who created a pathway for future female composers. Seventeenth-century women typically received a formal music education if they fell into one of three family circumstances. First, a child born into a family of professional musicians typically received musical training from her/his musical parent (most often her father). Alternatively, a child born into a noble family almost always received music instruction as part of her/his formal studies. Finally, children groomed for monastic life received formal music instruction as part of her/his religious education. Tonight’s program features music from women who fell into all three of these categories. 4 Program Notes, continued For many women, the convent offered a musical platform free of the stigma so often associated with women on stage. Given the amount of musical training many noble women received prior to taking monastic vows combined with the instruction they likely received within the convent walls, we should not be surprised at the number of female composers who created music for their religious communities. We are not surprised either that so little of it has survived. One exception is the extant music of Isabella Leonarda (1620 – 1704). Born into a notable Novarese family, Leonarda received a formal music education in line with her social status before entering the Collegio di S. Orsola as a nun. In fact, Leonarda served as music instructor at the Ursuline convent before her appointment as mother superior. Although convent life called for hours of service in daily household work and religious devotion, Leonarda managed to compose some two hundred musical works by her eightieth birthday and her oeuvre includes works in almost every sacred genre. And remarkably, in 1693, a collection of Leonarda’s instrumental works appeared in print, likely the earliest published sonatas by a woman. Tonight’s program opens with the tenth sonata from Leonarda’s groundbreaking opus. As a sonata da chiesa (sonata for the church), this work could substitute for certain portions of the sacred services. At the same time, the work could have served as private, secular entertainment. Although dance rhythms, such as the ones in this F-major sonata, appeared commonly in the sonata da chiesa genre, such movements seldom had clearly labeled dance names. Leonarda’s Sonata Decima features the typical sonata instrumentation for the period, two violins and basso continuo. Although this type of work is now called a trio sonata, the accompanying basso continuo group could range from one to three or four players. Tonight’s performance features two violins supported by a continuo trio of cello, harpsichord and Baroque guitar. The piece opens with the two solo violins chasing each other, first in a loose falling melody and then with an even quicker fanfare motive. Throughout the work, Leonarda intersperses lively passages for the soloists with moments of musical repose. These recitative-like sections provide a brief respite from the flurry of activity in Leonarda’s boisterous sonata. Although Leonarda herself offered no subtitle, later musicians nicknamed this piece “The Palindrome Sonata.” While not an exact mirror image of start and finish, the piece features balanced time signatures and tempo indications with several early sections repeated later on. Even an attentive listener might have trouble hearing this structure, but that Leonarda pulls off such a compositional juggling act confirms the confident skill with which she wrote. Program notes continue on page 6 5 Program Notes, continued Francesca Caccini (1587 – 1637), eldest daughter of famed Florentine composer, Giulio Caccini, received her musical training from her father, one of the most important composers of the early seventeenth century. In addition to lessons in voice and composition, Giulio also instructed his daughter on harpsichord and lute.