Continuo Connect — Concert // Ceruleo: Voices of Longing

Ceruleo present a preview of their forthcoming recording project 'Voices of Longing.' Featuring the vocal duets and solos of Barbara Strozzi, interspersed with contemporaneous instrumental pieces, this performance will bring to life this extraordinary expressive and unique music of this pioneering composer. Barbara Strozzi was the most widely published composer of her time, though rather than writing large-scale music - whether for the church or the new art form of opera - she almost exclusively wrote for solo voice or small vocal ensemble with continuo accompaniment. A famous performer as well as a composer, her music exemplifies the 'second practice' of music where flexibility and clarity of text-setting were prized over contrapuntal complexity. Formed of two sopranos, viola da gamba, harpsichord and lute, Ceruleo have previously toured and recorded the music of restoration England, and in this new project will put their unique spin on the passionate music of seventeenth century Venice.