Experts - Angel, Nun, and Priest

4 December 2020

Today we had our final expert session focusing on the music we have been singing this term in our An Angel, a Nun, and a Red Priest Home Choir project. On Friday 14 November at 4:00pm we heard from Dr Kimberly Marshall from her home in Arizona about how the music of Frescobaldi, Corelli, and Vivaldi, influenced the music of Bach - especially his organ works. The next week we heard Sarah Lenton, who works at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on connections between Handel and Italy - not just the music of Corelli, Scarlatti, and Vivaldi, but also the art and literature, and especially in the operatic realm. Last week Candace Smith joined us from her home in Bologna for a fascinating talk all about the music of convents in the period, and the huge number of nuns who were composing, including Isabella Leonarda, whose Magnificat we have been singing. Today’s final talk was given by Dr Jasmin Cameron from the University of Aberdeen. She edited the score of Vivaldi’s Gloria we have been using this term, and gave us a wonderful presentation on how she edited the score, the history of the manuscript and the various editions over the years, and the influence (putting it mildly!) of Ruggieri’s Gloria on Vivaldi’s composition.
 

Candace Smith from Bologna, Italy

Jasmin Cameron from the University of Aberdeen

Kimberly Marshall from Arizona, USA

Sarah Lenton from the Royal Opera House

We are very grateful to our Musical Director, Lee, for organising and hosting these sessions, to our fellow choral singers in Lee’s other choirs in Huntingdon, Leamington Spa, and Wellingborough, for joining us for these sessions, and especially to the four learned women who gave such inspirational multi-media talks. Whilst we are missing singing in person so very much, being able to connect with experts from all over the globe in this way has been a quite remarkable silver lining to this horrid Covid-19 cloud.