Concerts

Magnificat’s 18th Season – A Tour of Italy

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For our 2009-2010 season, Magnificat will take our audiences on a grand tour through four Italian cities: Florence (October 2009), Milan (December 2009), Venice (February 2010), and Mantua (April 2010). Along the way, we will hear a delightful puppet opera, a glorious mass for Christmas, a program of madrigals and motets, and perhaps the greatest masterpiece of the early Baroque. The season features music by two remarkable women and two pioneers of the “new music” of the 17th century. Each program is performed on Friday evenings on the Peninsula, Saturday evenings in Berkeley, and Sunday afternoons in San Francisco.
Florence
La Liberazione di Ruggiero
by Francesca Caccini
with The Carter Family Marionettes		 Oct 16-18 2009
Magnificat welcomes back the Carter Family Marionettes for a production of Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’ Isola d’Alcina, the earliest surviving opera by a woman. The opera is based on Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso and features magical transformations, burning castles, winged monsters and of course, exquisite melodies.
Milan
Christmas Mass
by Chiara Margarita Cozzolani		 Dec 4-6 2009
In December, by popular demand, Magnificat will again perform Cozzolani’s setting of the Mass – this time as it would have been heard on Christmas Day. Mixing glorious polyphony, intimate motets, and traditional Gregorian chant, much of the music will be drawn from Magnificat’s critically-acclaimed CD Messa Paschale on the Musica Omnia label.
Venice
Celesti Fiori
by Alessandro Grandi		 Feb 12-14 2010
For our concerts on Valentine’s Day weekend, Magnificat will feature songs about love – both spiritual and wordly – in a program that features soprano Laura Heimes nd violinists Rob Diggins and Jolianne von Einem. Alessandro Grandi was a prolific and influential composer, well respected during his life, but rarely performed today – just the sort of repertoire Magnificat loves to explore!
Mantua
Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610)
by Claudio Monteverdi		 Apr 23-25 2010
In his famous Vespers collection of 1610 Monteverdi consciously melded the competing styles of old and new that fueled the great musical debate of the new century. Based on ancient psalm tones, the polyphonic settings of the Vespers offer a kaleidoscopic tour through the new musical styles that were evolving at the time. Magnificat will be joined by early wind ensemble The Whole Noyse in these performances marking the 400th anniversary of the publication of this remarkable music.