Research Projects
“Celebrating Agata, unsung composer.”
Concert, Research Presentation, and Forthcoming Video Documentary. Australian Chamber Choir. Venice, Italy (July 2024).
ABSTRACT: In collaboration with the Australian Chamber Choir, Teatro San Cassiano, and the Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello, a reconstruction of a cantata composed by Agata Cantora was performed in Venice, Italy. Agata Cantora was one of the few women of the Ospedale della Pieta who was able to composer her own music. Through a few surviving parts, the Austrailian Chamber Choir has developed a version that can be performed again today. This performance will be accompanied by a research presentation and a forthcoming documentary about Agata Cantora’s life and musical contributions.
“La decollazione di San Giovanni Battista by Maria Margherita Grimani.”
21st-Century Premiere Concert and Forthcoming Performance Edition. Haymarket Opera Company. Chicago, IL (March 2024).
ABSTRACT: Maria Margherita Grimani was the last of a line of women composers who wrote oratorios and other paraliturgical works for the Austrian imperial court. La decollazione di San Giovanni Battista was one of three works that she composed between 1713 and 1718. Because the composer’s style aligns to the religious, Italianate tastes of the Habsburg family, this particular oratorio serves as an informative object of Viennese culture, as well as an addition to the long history of representing the John the Baptist and Salome story through art and music. Grimani’s setting of the well-known biblical tale stands apart from the many others that depict Salome as a provocative or dangerous women. Instead, her musical emphasis on the character of John the Baptist mirrors imperial religious devotion, while her dance-like aria for Salome highlights the humble obedience expected of eighteenth-century courtly women.
“Making a Name in Music: Professional and Social Strategies of the Musicians at the Venetian Ospedali Maggiori.”
In Non-Elite Women’s Networks Across the Early Modern World. Edited by Elizabeth S. Cohen and Marlee J. Couling. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023.
ABSTRACT: In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Venice, hundreds of poor and abandoned girls and women turned to one of the four charitable Ospedale Maggiori for help and refuge. Those who had a musical talent, however, could find a life of relative privilege and distinction as one of the institutions’ female musicians, known as figlie di coro. These figlie di coro often became esteemed musicians, performing publicly and teaching music throughout their lives. This essay tells the stories of specific figlie di coro and the networks on which they relied to support their advantageous musical careers. Their own personal letters reveal insight to the connections they developed through their musical prestige, which in turn helped them navigate various life choices and hardships faced by women in Venetian society.
Paradies, Pietro Domenico. Le Muse in gara.
Critical performing edition. Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2021.
ABSTRACT: Le muse in gara, a serenata composed by Pietro Domenico Paradies on a libretto by D. Giacomo De Belli, was a highlight of the Venetian musical and cultural milieu at its premiere in the Ospedale di Mendicanti on 4 April 1740. The performance, given by the Ospedale’s all-female musical ensemble, enticed hundreds of esteemed nobles and foreigners, including a special guest, the future Prince-Elector of Saxony Frederick Christian. Because so many prestigious audience members were in attendance to hear the exceptional female musicians, the text and the context of the performance represent an occasion of Venice’s foreign relations being fashioned through the Ospedale and its musical performances. This edition of Le muse in gara offers a crucial glimpse of the importance of the Ospedale and its female musicians in Venice’s political maneuvering, with an introduction that highlights institutional structure and performer contributions in relation to the work.