Friday, March 8th 2019, 7:30 p. m.
Church of Saint-Léon-de-Westmount
4311 de Maisonneuve Blvd West, Westmount
Atwater Metro

On March 8, 2019, we will celebrate International Women’s Day with soprano Suzie LeBlanc as our guest conductor. She will lead an allwomen choir and instrumental ensemble: nine singers and nine instrumentalists, each group evoking the nine Muses. On the program, sacred works by great Italian female composers of the 16th and 17th centuries, including Eleonora d’Este—daughter of Lucrezia Borgia—, Isabella Leonarda, Raffaella Aleotti, and Margarita Cozzolani. As they could not hold official posts due to their gender, and because most of them worked in relative obscurity—several were nuns—, the quality of their work today comes as a revelation.

Listen the pre-concert conversation (Suzie LeBlanc / Rebecca Bain)

Leonora d’Este (1515-1575)
Sicut lilium
Tribulationes
Haec Dies

Sulpitia Cesis (1577- après 1619)
Io son ferito
Il mio più vago sole
O Crux splendidior

Rafaella Aleotti (1575-1620)
Ego flos campi
Vidi speciosam

Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana (1590-1662)
O Magnum mysterium
Sonet vox tua

Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602-c.1677)
Domine ad adjuvandum me
Laudate pueri

Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704)
Sonata duodecima (extract)
Gloria in excelsis Deo (Dialogo à 4 per il Santo Natale, da Motetti à 4 voci […], op. 10)

Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) Priego ed amore
Xavier Maria Perucona (c.1652-1709) Cessate tympana

Duration: 1 h 30

Soloists
Anne-Marie Beaudette, Marie Magistry et  Stephanie Manias, sopranos

Choristers-soloists
Rebecca Dowd, Ariadne Lih et Bronwyn Thies-Thompson, sopranos
Charlotte Cumberbirch, Josée Lalonde et Meagan Zantigh, altos

Instruments
Laura Adriani, violin
Hélène Plouffe, violin II
Dominique Lortie, sackbut
Marie-Laurence Primeau, viola da gamba and recorder
Margaret Little, viola da gamba
Jessica Korotkin, violone
Suzanne De Serres, dulcian
Sara Lackie, harp
Dorothéa Ventura, positive organ

Suzie LeBlanc, Guest conductor