Friday, March 3, 8 p.m.
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
2340 Victoria Avenue
Tickets are available at Cobb Swanson Music and Bach & Beyond.
Adults: $25 / Students & Seniors: $20
This concert is in celebration of International Woman’s Day. Per Sonatori’s final concert of the season celebrates the women who performed and composed in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Soprano and Coloratura Kerri Cornish-Morton comes back home to portray Francesca Cuzzoni, the original Italian diva! She was a force to be reckoned with in 18th century opera houses, earning high praise for her expressivity. Of course, she earned — and demanded! — lots of money, especially for a woman. Handel sought her out eagerly and wrote many famous arias for her. He apparently handled her diva temperament by dangling her out a window and threatening to drop her! We will perform two of the arias Handel wrote for her.
We will also feature Baroque works by women composers. Until very recently, women composers of this time were unknown and unplayed. Thanks to efforts by musicologists, and the scholarly movement of feminism, these wonderful works have come to light. We will perform music by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, harpsichord virtuoso, who dared to publish and perform her own works when no other woman could. We will also feature the first sonata written by a woman (Isabella Leonarda), and vocal music by Barbara Strozzi which Kerri will perform.
Interwoven with the music will be stories and anecdotes of the hardships these women had to face, daring to work as musicians when their society demanded that women should stay in the home. Come and learn what it was like to be a woman back then, and celebrate their music with us!