Victorious Secret
Love Gamed and Gender Untamed in the Sparkling Courts of the Baroque
Eli McCormack, Male Soprano
Christopher Morrongiello, Lute & Baroque Guitar
Tuesday, June 20 7:00pm
Optional Dinner & Drinks 5:00pm
Pangea
178 2nd Avenue between 11th & 12th Streets
Music of Caccini, Dowland, Handel, Strozzi, and others
Before the bars of gender binaries caged the mainstream operatic imagination, a golden age of fluidity guided the vocal soundscape. Virility declared itself with the castrato’s clarion high notes, while femininity spoke in earthy tessiture that plunged to shimmering depths.
Texts of the period revel in ambiguity, unfurling genderless narratives of anonymous lovers and unnamed beloveds. Stories of active pursuit and passive reverie remain alike at loose ends, with neat resolutions many movements away.
Please join us for this special program in honor of Pride Month, as the music of the past reveals a golden underground of nonbinary riches, accompanying us in our witness to a new Renaissance.
Babylon, Ghetto, Renaissance, and Modern Oblivion
Screening followed by a Q&A with Babylon director Jessica Gould
Wednesday, May 17 7:30pm
The Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th street
co-presented by the American Society for Jewish Music, American Sephardi Federation, and YIVO
Previous Events 2023
A 29-minute voyage through four centuries, Babylon confronts vital questions about minority musicians
and their foundational roles in the music we enjoy today.
Who was celebrated? Who was erased? Who was invited to the party and who was left out in the cold?
Whose genius was attributed to someone else? Who contributed the most while remaining on the sidelines of history?
And most importantly, why does it keep happening?
Ezra Knight narrates a script that interweaves works by Italian-Jewish composer Salomone Rossi (1570 – 1630) and contemporary American Brandon Waddles (1988 –). Additional Rossi works include performances by the Bacchus Consort, Voices of Music, and soprano Jessica Gould in collaboration with lutenist Lucas Harris. Also featuring the groundbreaking Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, other musical selections include historical recordings by Ma Rainey, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Big Mama Thornton, The Fisk Jubilee Singers, as well as two luminaries in contemporary West African music – Kevin Nathaniel Hylton and Yacouba Sissoko.
Since its 2020 premiere, Babylon has garnered over 90 laurels from film festivals across the globe. To see the film's award listings, as well as more complete information about the film, click here.
Previous Events 2022
NY Premiere Screening of Babylon, Ghetto, Renaissance, and Modern Oblivion
Thursday, october 20
6:30pm
NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò
24 West 12th street
For Additional Babylon Screenings, please click here.
A Benefit for Ukraine
Thursday, July 28th 7:00pm
Marc A. Scorca Recital Hall
The National Opera Center
330 7th Avenue, 7th floor (b/w 28th and 29th street)
Click here to see the concert program.
Jessica Gould, soprano; Galina Ivvanikova, mezzo-soprano; Vira Slywotzky, contralto
Lucas Levy, tenor; Steven Andrew Murray, tenor; Richard Hobson, baritone
Gianni Fabbrini, piano & music direction
Salon/Sanctuary Concerts lifts our voice to help Razom for Ukraine provide urgently needed humanitarian relief where it is desperately needed in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Donetsk, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia.
Accompanied by maestro Gianni Fabbrini of the Semper Oper Dresden, Opéra National de Paris, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Rossini Opera Festival of Pesaro, the Festivals of Glyndebourne and Wexford, Maggio Musciale, etc., an ensemble of singers, both American and Ukrainian, share treasured repertoire from opera, oratorio, and recital.
Arias, and duets by Handel, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Ravel, and Bernstein along with traditional spirituals and Ukrainian songs reflect on war, peace, government good and bad, the gift of loyalty and the joy of allyship, the sacrifices of leadership, and the miracle of endurance in the face of overwhelming adversity.
Please join us in raising critically needed support for our allies in Ukraine.
Tuesday, March 22nd 7:00pm
Thursday, March 24th 7:00pm
The Recital Hall of St. Michael's Church, 225 West 99th St.
Hopkinson Smith, Lute
Bright and Early
Italian and French Lute Music from the Dawn of the 16th Century
The American-born virtuoso performs works of Francesco Spinacino (1507) and Zoan Ambrosio Dalza (1508), alternating with music from the first French lute tablatures printed in 1529 and 1530 by Pierre Attaingnant