Freeing the Muse

'Freeing the Muse' explores Renaissance ideas of female beauty as shaped by women themselves, revealing women who shaped musical culture in their own time, notably Maddalena Casulana, Raphaella Alleotti and Francesca Caccini. This is heard alongside madrigals of their male contemporaries and was forged in close dialogue with exceptional female singers, whose virtuosity transformed the sound of late 16th-century Italy. Here, the ‘muse’ is not a silent ideal but an active presence. Fieri celebrates the boldness, imagination and artistic authority of women whose voices resound throughout this repertoire.

Programme:
Madrigals by Maddalena Casulana, Raphaella Alleotti, Francesca Caccini, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Carlo Gesualdo and Cipriano da Rore.

Performers:
Lucinda Cox, Hannah Ely sopranos
Steph Dillon mezzo-soprano
Thomas Kelly, Christopher Fitzgerald-Lombard tenors
Ben Rowarth bass
Toby Carr lute
Harry Buckoke viola da gamba