Magnificat

Along with all who were touched by her, I was deeply saddened to learn that soprano Judith Nelson had passed away earlier this year. Few musicians have had a bigger impact on me personally and Magnificat as an ensemble than Judy. She sang in over 40 Magnificat concerts in the 90s and appeared  in one of the title roles (along with Paul Hillier) on Magnificat’s first recording, Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo. I also had the privilege of working with Judy in California Bach Society projects and in many other situations. But it was as a friend that I remember Judy the best and it is these memories that I treasure most.

The first thing that comes to mind when I remember Judy is how influential she was and how much everyone tried to sing like her but the second thing I think of is how, in fact, no one ever sounded like Judy except Judy. Of course, she sang exquisitely in every style and genre and yet it was always undeniably Judy. Her great gift to me (and to all of us) was in embodying the ideal of using your talent and ability to express who you are with integrity and conviction, which she did as well as anyone I have ever known.

In rehearsals Judy was always a model of professionalism but she also had a sharp wit and everyone who worked with her has plenty of memories of her playful sense of humor and well-timed rejoinders that always contributed to an atmosphere of camaraderie and common purpose. Judy had a uncanny ability to surprise through her vocal artistry and the depth of her understanding of the historical and musical context of the music she was performing, but also through her disarming candor.

As the days finally start getting longer, it’s a good time to look back on the remarkable year that Magnificat enjoyed in 2010 – our biggest audiences ever, two appearances at the Berkeley Festival, the release of the first volume of Cozzolani’s complete works and, of course, lots and lots of spectacular music. In the past twelve months Magnificat performed 16 times in venues ranging from Yoshi’s to Grace Cathedral.

During the year, Magnificat performed music by Alessandro Grandi, Claudio Monteverdi, Barbara Strozzi, Antonio Vivaldi, Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, John Blow, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Nicolas LeBegue, Biagio Marini, and Dario Castello.

The blog has been quiet, but we’ve been hard at work. We’re close to launching the new Magnificat website – and this blog will a little re-designing as well. But that’s just part of what’s been going on. We’re preparing for the Berkeley Festival, our CD release party, and we’re hosting next month’s History Carnival.

Nika Korniyenko took some photos from our performance of Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers yesterday evening at the beautiful St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park. Two more performances - tonight at St. Mark's Episcopal in Berkeley and tomorrow afternoon at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Both concerts are selling well but tickets are still available.

Qui dat nivem sicut lanam: nebulam sicut cinerem spargit. Mittit crystallum suum sicut buccellas: ante faciem frigoris eius quis sustinebit?

The parts designated ‘Alto’ or ‘Septimus’ in Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers, like all music from the period, encompass a vocal range that in later music is most often sung by high tenors. The ‘counter tenor’ of the later Baroque would typically sing in a slightly higher register. As a result together with the ‘Tenore’ and ‘Quintus’ parts, we will have four tenors for our performances April 23-25.

A year ago, Magnificat performed Alessandro Scarlatti’s serenata Amore, Venere, e Ragione with “3 Jennifers”. For the final concerts of our 2009-2010 season, Magnificat is pleased to feature two of the Jennifers – Jennifer Paulino and Jennifer Ellis Kampani – as our sopranos. (Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Lane will be joining us for our performance at the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition in June.)

For Magnificat’s performances of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers next week, we are pleased to welcome three musicians who will be appearing with us for the first time, cornettist Kiri Tollaksen, baritone Jeffrey Fields and tenor Mirko Guadagnini.

On June 7th, KDFC with present Magnificat’s CD Release Party at Yoshi’s in San Francisco. The event will mark the official release of the first volume of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani’s complete works.

Tickets Now available Online - Click Here Magnificat has been invited to perform a  program of Cozzolani motets as a featured concert on the Berkeley Early Music Festival and Exhibition this June. The concert will mark the release of the first volume of our recordings of Cozzolani's complete works. Sopranos Catherine Webster, Jennifer Ellis Kampani, and altos Meg Bragle and Jennifer Lane will join with the continuo team of David Tayler and Hanneke van Proosdij for the concert on Friday June 11 at 8:00 at First Congregational Church in Berkeley. The program will be drawn from Cozzolani's 1642 collection Concerti Sacri and will include setting of all four Marian antiphons - Ave regina coelorum, Salve, O regina, Alma redemptoris mater, and Regina caeli, laetare. In addition, Magnificat will perform six of her other motets - Colligite, pueri, flores, O mi domine, Obstupiscite, gentes, Regna terrae cantate Deo, Quid, miseri, quis faciamus ...

It was with tremendous sadness that we learned that Brian Howard passed away earlier this month. Brian was a founding member of The Whole Noyse and appeared in Magnificat's first season in performances of Schütz' Weihnachtshistorie. A dear friend and musical colleague, Brian touched the lives of many in the early music community in the Bay Area. Magnificat extends our deepest sympathy to Brian's wife Lynn. The following obituary gives some sense of Brian's remarkable and diverse life. We will miss his gentle warm spirit. Brian Howard, Computer designer and musician, died of cancer on February 1st at his home in Portola Valley, CA; he was 65 years old. Born on March 23, 1944, in Cambridge, MA, he grew up in Norman, OK. His father was a physics professor at the University of Oklahoma, and his mother was a classical pianist. He attended Stanford University on a National Merit scholarship, graduating ...

For the New Year, we've made some changes to the blog. We've added direct links to Magnificat on Facebook, Twitter, and Flikr. You can also listen to streaming audio of Magnificat by clicking on the Magnificat Radio tab. We hope you enjoy it! Happy New Year!

We’ve uploaded photos from our wonderful week of Cozzolani to our Flickr page. Beyond the excellent musicians, we benefitted from assistance from a four footed advisor in Berkeley. Here’s a sample from the photo set:

Listen to Cozzolani's Music The San Francisco Classical Voice published the following review by Anna Carol Dudley. It is very gratifying to be recognized so graciously. Bravi tutti to Catherine, Meg, Jennifer, Kristen, Hugh and Hanneke - it was a wonderful week! Magnificat’s dazzling singers have done it again. As part of their ongoing project to perform and record the complete works of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, four singers brought her glorious music vividly to life in a performance Saturday at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley. The four women sang music that Cozzolani wrote for the famous singing nuns in her convent, Santa Radegonda, in 17th-century Milan. Cozzolani’s setting of a Christmas Mass, In nativitate Domini (The birthday of the Lord), was written to be sung by a male celebrant — in this concert, Hugh Davies, whose expressive chant framed the work. The women formed a chorus, chanting in unison, then blossoming into ...

Listen to Cozzolani's Music By all accounts the nuns at the convent of Santa Radegonda in the 17th Century did not have internet access and so it had to wait until the 21st century for Chiara Margarita Cozzolani to launch get her own Facebook page. With her birthday coming up on November 27th in seemed like an especially appropriate time. As Magnificat prepares for our upcoming performances of  phenomenal music of the Benedictine nun from Santa Radegonda, it occurred to us that she deserved a Facebook page. Please visit and become a fan! Magnificat has benefited tremendously from Robert Kendrick's path-breaking research into convent music in Milan as well as the work of other scholars like Colleen Reardon, Craig Monson, Gabriella Zarri, Ann Mather, and so many others who have helped us developed a deeper appreciation for the music written and performed in convents in the 17th Century. We are also grateful ...

Magnificat will be participating in the second annual Early Music Musician's Bazaar. Among the delights available for purchase will be CD's, concert tickets, sheet music & lots of other fun stuff.  The Bazaar will take place from 10 am to 3 pmon Saturday December 12 at MusicSources, 1000 The Alameda, Berkeley. It's a great opportunity for holiday shopping that will support the Bay Area early music community, As one of the organizers (and Magnificat musician) Hanneke van Proosdij explains, "it's a community event bringing together the early music groups and supporting the local musicians. Basically there are a bunch of vendor tables spread out throughout the entire lower floor of MusicSources. People can drop in, peruse the stuff, hang out and eat way too much chocolate." The stellar list of participants in the Bazaar includes Cançonièr, Ensemble Vermillian, Farallon Recorder Quartet , The Festival Consort, Glen Shannon Music, Healing Muses, Junior Recorder ...

We learned that Wikio.com, a website featuring a news search engine for media sites and blogs is creating a music sub-category for Classical Music blogs and that this blog has made the top 20 (specifically, and ominously, no. 13). A big thank you to all our readers and subscribers and congratulations to all those other bloggers on the list! I've visited all these blogs and can confirm that there is a lot of terrific writing on music being done in cyberspace. Bravi! Here's the top 20: 1 Clef Notes 2 Nico Muhly 3 The Arts Blog 4 Andrew Patner: The View from Here 5 PostClassic 6 Think denk 7 Sandow 8 Oboeinsight 9 Violinist.com 10 Amusicology 11 The Collaborative Piano Blog 12 2'23` 13 Magnificat 14 Adaptistration 15 Intermezzo 16 SLSO Blog 17 Entartete Musik 18 The Opera Tattler 19 Opera Today 20 Musical Perceptions Ranking by Wikio According to Wikio, the position of a blog in the ranking depends on the number and weight of the incoming links from other blogs. These links are dynamic, which means that they are backlinks or links found within articles. Only links found in the RSS ...

This line from the 2002 performances of Radiohead's  song "Go to Sleep" (sadly omitted from the studio version) kept coming back to me at the Future of Music Policy Summit this week. I'm updating some of my thoughts from the first day of the concert. As I noted in that post, the summit was packed with ideas and energy and I was impressed with the spirit of cooperation and community that pervaded the discussions, which I have also sensed in the cyberworld of social media. There is a feeling of open ended possibilities that I found especially refreshing. Throughout the summit, I continued imagining how the promotion and networking strategies, the new technologies and media platforms, and the radically altered market structure for music will affect artists, like Magnificat, that work with historical music - how to make the music of the past part of the future of music. At the remarkable ...

Magnificat will be attending the Future of Music Policy Summit October 4-6 in Washington DC. The Summit promises to be a fascinating exploration of the ramifications of new technology and communications portals on the production, dissemination, and promotion of music. The wide range of a range of speakers and panelists for the Summit include US Senator Al Franken, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Daniel Ek, founder of the music service Spotify, as well as artists like Wayne Kramer of MC5, Mike Mills of R.E.M., Erin McKeown, and Brian Message of Radiohead's management team. From the FoM website: It’s been nearly a decade since the digital music genie burst out of its bottle, changing the game for virtually everyone in the music ecosystem. So what comes next? Future of Music Policy Summit 2009 will examine this question through practical, musician-focused workshops, keynotes from leading artists, managers and policymakers and inspired panel discussions ...

Magnificat's 2009-2010 Season Brochure will be hitting snail mailboxes next week, but we wanted to give you a sneak peek. It can be downloaded by clicking here (PDF - 17MB). Magnificat's creative director Nika Korniyenko designed the brochure and the beautiful poster below. Nika has been designing Magnificat's brochures and programs since 2005 and she also designed Magnificat's new website and the "CD" covers for all the recent releases on Magnificat's music page. Nika has been involved in a variety of creative projects ranging from theatre and film production to classical illustration and printmaking. A native of St. Petersburg, Russia, she practiced classical art techniques at the City of St. Petersburg Art School and studied art history at the Hermitage State Museum. She later graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts. In addition to her published illustrations, Nika’s artwork has been seen in group exhibitions in Venice, Osaka, the ...