Ann Arbor Grail Singers
Our recent concert history
Music from Codex Speciálnik ~ a Prague Manuscript c. 1500 ~ May 7th, 2017
The Ann Arbor Grail Singers presented an exciting concert of music from the Codex Speciálnik, one of the oldest surviving collections of Czech renaissance polyphony. The manuscript was compiled for use in the Prague Utraquist congregations of the Bohemian Reformation around 1500. This “special” song-book embraces nearly a century of Western Renaissance style, while also featuring new fruits from the burgeoning Czech culture.
Because a digital copy of the original pages is now available on line, director Carmen Cavallaro has transcribed selections directly from the manuscript for our 15 voice women’s choir. This fascinating program was also accompanied by several instrumentalists including Beth Gilford on recorder, Doris Williams playing bray harp, and Stefan Stolarchuk on the sackbut.
A Rose of Such Virtue ~ December 11th, 2016
The Ann Arbor Grail Singers presented an exciting concert of Christmas music spanning twelve centuries! Directed by Carmen Cavallaro, the 16-voice women’s choir was accompanied by Beth Gilford, recorder; Gail Arnold, bray harp; James Perretta, gamba; and Anne Crawford, organ.
This festive holiday concert program included a 9th century Advent hymn, Gregorian chant, and a wide variety of Renaissance Christmas music from England, France, Spain, and the German empire. Featured were several settings of Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (A rose has sprung up), a Christmas carol and Marian Hymn of German origin.
Domenico Scarlatti: Vocal Masterpieces ~ May 22, 2016
The Ann Arbor Grail Singers presented an unusual concert of the music of Domenico Scarlatti. The choir was accompanied by Mary Riccardi and Daniel Foster, Baroque violin; Linda Speck, viola; Jocelyn Schendel, cello; and Anne Crawford, chamber organ.
Although Scarlatti is best known today for his 555 keyboard sonatas, he composed in a variety of forms including operas, cantatas, and sacred music. Featured in this performance were his Misa de Madrid, a setting of the Magnificat, and two versions of Salve Regina: one for female choir and the other sung by guest mezzo-soprano Deborah Malamud, accompanied by a string quartet.
Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples in 1685, the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. He was the sixth of ten children of the composer Alessandro Scarlatti. Although he spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families, Scarlatti also worked in Rome from 1709 – 1719. While in Rome, he is said to have competed with Handel in a trial of skill where he was judged superior to Handel as a harpsichord player, although inferior on the organ.
La Contenance Angloise: The English Influence on Franco-Flemish Renaissance Music ~ December 13, 2015
The Ann Arbor Grail Singers presented an unusual concert on La Contenance Angloise: The English Influence on Franco-Flemish Renaissance Music. Directed by Carmen Cavallaro, the 16-voice women’s choir was accompanied by Marilyn Fung, viola da gamba; Gail Arnold, bray harp; Beth Gilford, recorder; and Laura Crytzer, sackbut.
The concert included works by Dunstable and Dufay, as well as other English and Flemish composers transitioning from the Late Middle Ages into the Early Renaissance. Psalms and motets were punctuated by Gregorian chants, and the choir was joined by guest soprano Deborah Friauff for Dufay's lament on the loss of Constantinople in 1453.
La Contenance Angloise, the English Manner, is a distinctive style of polyphony developed in fifteenth-century England. A phrase coined by French poet Martin le Franc, the Contenance referred to a characteristically English sound found in the music of composers such as John Dunstable, which greatly influenced the major Burgundian composers Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois. Its full, rich harmonies were popular in the fashionable Burgundian court of Philip the Good, and as a result influenced European music of the era in general.
The Many Faces of Henry Purcell - May 31st, 2015
The Ann Arbor Grail Singers celebrated the genius of English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a program of sacred motets and operatic excerpts. Directed by Carmen Cavallaro, the 16-voice women’s choir was accompanied by Daniel Foster and Mary Riccardi, Baroque violin; Linda Speck, viola; Debra Lonergan, viola da gamba; Beth Gilford, recorder; and Anne Crawford, chamber organ.
The concert began with Purcell’s sacred works, including the Funeral Sentences written for the funeral of Queen Mary II in 1695 and performed at Purcell’s own funeral later the same year. The motel “Oh Sing unto the Lord” alternates vocal sections with interludes by a string quartet.
After intermission were excerpts from the Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, which recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, and her despair when he abandons her. The music includes the dramatic witches’ scenes and “Dido’s Lament,” the latter sung by guest artist Norma Gentile.
A Garland of Madrigals ~ December 14th, 2014
This unusual concert featured secular and sacred music by a little-known Italian Renaissance composer, Vittoria Aleotti. Directed by Carmen Cavallaro, the 17-voice women’s choir was accompanied by Debra Lonergan, viola da gamba; Beth Gilford, recorder; and Anne Crawford, chamber organ.
Aleotti was a musical prodigy: as a young child she was present during her older sister’s music lessons, and so astonished her father and the music teacher with what she absorbed that she was given music lessons of her own. She began studying music at the renowned convent of San Vito in Ferrara at the age of 6 or 7. The 21 madrigals that open the concert were written before she entered the convent at age 14, and later published as Ghirlanda de madrigali, a Garland of Madrigals.
At San Vito, where she ultimately became director of music, Aleotti composed the motets that comprise the second half of the Grail Singers’ concert. Published in 1593 as Sacrae cantiones, her motets were the first book of sacred music by a woman to appear in print.
About the Composer
Vittoria Aleotti was born in Ferrara to the prominent architect Giovanni Battista Aleotti, and was mentioned in his will, written in 1631. According to her father, Vittoria became interested in music after listening to her older sister being taught music. Within a year, Vittoria had mastered singing and the harpsichord so well that she was sent to study with Alessandro Milleville and Ercole Pasquini. At the age of 6 or 7, after working with Pasquini, it was suggested that Vittoria be sent to Ferrara’s San Vito, a convent famous for fostering musical talents. By the age of 14, Vittoria chose to enter the convent and dedicate her life to service.
There has been controversy about the composer’s identity, because her sacred motets were published under the name Raffaella Aleotti. Giovanni Battista Aleotti is said to have had five daughters and there is no record of a daughter named Raffaella, so it is assumed that Vittoria changed her name after entering the convent. After 1593, Vittoria is never heard of again, while Raffaella gained fame for her musical abilities.
The convent of San Vito in Ferrara was a music training institution, and Raffaella Aleotti was the music director. No male teachers were brought in to teach the young women. Raffaella directed the concerto grande, an ensemble of twenty-three singers as well as instrumentalists, trained women musicians within the convent, and taught young children in the public sphere. She even taught musical instruments that women were not usually permitted to play such as the cornetti, trombone, violin, viole bastarde, cornamuses (bagpipes), and flutes.
Hercole Bottrigari states in his Il Desiderio of 1594, a dialogue on the musical practice at San Vito: “It appeared to me that the persons who ordinarily participated in this concert were not human, bodily creatures, but were truly angelic spirits. Nor must you imagine that I refer to the beauty of face and richness of garments and clothing, for you would err greatly, since one sees only the most modest grace and pleasing dress and humble department in them.”
About the Music
In 1591, Vittoria published a single madrigal (Di pallide viole), in a musical anthology: Il giardino de musici ferraresi. Two years later, she set music to eight poems by Giovanni Battista Guarini, which her father later sent to Count del Zaffo, who had them printed in Venice by Giacomo Vincenti. This book of madrigals was entitled Ghirlanda de madrigali a quatro voci.
Ghirlanda de madrigali contains eighteen four-voice madrigals for soprano (canto), alto, tenor, and bass. The madrigals are short, with imitative sections that alternate with chordal sections, and with the expected meter changes from duple to triple. Duets and trios are common in the musical fabric. Dissonance is carefully placed both in the melody as well as in the supporting harmonies. In the Grail Singers concert, the top three parts are sung by the choir, and the bass part is played by the viola da gamba.
In the same year as the book of madrigals was published, Raffaella published a book of motets, for which she wrote the dedication herself. Printed by Amadino in 1593, Sacrae cantiones quinque, septem, octo, & decem vocibus decantande, was the first sacred book of music by a woman to appear in print.
2013-2014 Season
Our Spring 2014 concert was a “Renaissance and Baroque Birthday Bash” featuring sacred and secular music by composers born in 1464, 1514, 1564, and 1714. The major work was the rarely performed Magnificat by Robert Fayrfax (1464 - 1521), a complex polyphonic motet interleaved with Gregorian chant. In addition to the sacred music, the concert showcased songs written by English composers Thomas Arne, Robert Johnson, and Thomas Morley to lyrics by Shakespeare (1564 – 1616).
In November 2013, we presented a concert of sacred and secular music from Spain and Spanish-influenced America, accompanied by Debra Lonergan, viola da gamba; Beth Gilford, recorders; Rex Benincasa, percussion; and Anne Crawford, chamber organ. The first half of the program featured Renaissance and Baroque music from the New World—Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru. The second half of the program was based on the Cancionero de Medinaceli manuscript from the Duke of Medinaceli's library, compiled in the late 16th century and considered one of the most important collections of Spanish secular music of the Renaissance. The pieces include dances, villancicos, and madrigal-like songs.
2012-2013 Season
Our May 2013 concert illustrated the evolution of sacred music from 1150 to the present. It followed choral music from early polyphony through a rarely-heard Renaissance work by Francisco de Montanos (1528-1595) and a variety of Baroque and Classical works, to modern works in the early music tradition such as a motet by Grail Singers director Carmen Cavallaro based on the chant Alma Redemptoris Mater. The cornerstone of the program was Pergolesi’s moving Stabat Mater for women’s voices (1736).
In December 2012, the Grail Singers and guest artist Kiri Tollaksen (cornetto) gave the Michigan premiere of a 12th-century St. James Mass. The Codex Calixtinus was compiled in the 12th century as advice for pilgrims following the Way of St. James across southern France to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. The Codexincludes the St. James Mass the Grail Singers performed, as well as other text and music for use by pilgrims. The chants in this Mass predate Gregorian chant, and the work also includes one of the earliest known examples of three-part polyphony.
2011 – 2012 Season (and earlier)
In November 2011, the Grail Singers and guest soloist Lorna Young Hildebrandt (a Grail Singers alumna) performed the Ann Arbor premiere of a Gasparini Mass in five parts for high voices. Debra Lonergan and Shin Hwang accompanied the choir on viola da gamba and chamber organ. We recorded the Mass in December 2011, and performed it again in Adrian in May 2012.
Gasparini composed the Mass for the women singers of the Pio Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, where he was Maestro di Coro from 1701 to 1713 and employed Antonio Vivaldi. Although not as well-known as his famous subordinate, Gasparini composed dozens of operas as well as sacred music. He was thought to have studied under Corelli, and one of his students was Domenico Scarlatti.
For these concerts—and the recording—Grail Singers’ director Carmen Cavallaro prepared a new edition of this unusual piece, long out of print. To ensure the accuracy of their performing Concerts for Grail Singers Website Page 1 August 27, 2014 edition, the Grail Singers commissioned photographs of the composer’s autograph score from its owner, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.
In 2010 and earlier in 2011, the Grail Singers presented two other programs. The February and March 2011 concerts featured liturgical music of the Spanish Renaissance, with a special focus on Tomás Luis de Victoria, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his death. Other Spanish composers on the program included Cristobal de Morales and Francisco de Montanos.
Our May 2010 concert showcased Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music based on the Marian antiphons, four Gregorian chants sung in honor of the Virgin Mary: Alma Redemptoris Mater, Ave Regina Caelorum, Regina Caeli, and Salve Regina. The program included works by Palestrina, Lully, Grandi, Vizzana, and medieval composer Lionel Power; it concluded with the dynamic Credidi by Nicola Porpora.
Because a digital copy of the original pages is now available on line, director Carmen Cavallaro has transcribed selections directly from the manuscript for our 15 voice women’s choir. This fascinating program was also accompanied by several instrumentalists including Beth Gilford on recorder, Doris Williams playing bray harp, and Stefan Stolarchuk on the sackbut.
A Rose of Such Virtue ~ December 11th, 2016
The Ann Arbor Grail Singers presented an exciting concert of Christmas music spanning twelve centuries! Directed by Carmen Cavallaro, the 16-voice women’s choir was accompanied by Beth Gilford, recorder; Gail Arnold, bray harp; James Perretta, gamba; and Anne Crawford, organ.
This festive holiday concert program included a 9th century Advent hymn, Gregorian chant, and a wide variety of Renaissance Christmas music from England, France, Spain, and the German empire. Featured were several settings of Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (A rose has sprung up), a Christmas carol and Marian Hymn of German origin.
Domenico Scarlatti: Vocal Masterpieces ~ May 22, 2016
The Ann Arbor Grail Singers presented an unusual concert of the music of Domenico Scarlatti. The choir was accompanied by Mary Riccardi and Daniel Foster, Baroque violin; Linda Speck, viola; Jocelyn Schendel, cello; and Anne Crawford, chamber organ.
Although Scarlatti is best known today for his 555 keyboard sonatas, he composed in a variety of forms including operas, cantatas, and sacred music. Featured in this performance were his Misa de Madrid, a setting of the Magnificat, and two versions of Salve Regina: one for female choir and the other sung by guest mezzo-soprano Deborah Malamud, accompanied by a string quartet.
Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples in 1685, the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. He was the sixth of ten children of the composer Alessandro Scarlatti. Although he spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families, Scarlatti also worked in Rome from 1709 – 1719. While in Rome, he is said to have competed with Handel in a trial of skill where he was judged superior to Handel as a harpsichord player, although inferior on the organ.
La Contenance Angloise: The English Influence on Franco-Flemish Renaissance Music ~ December 13, 2015
The Ann Arbor Grail Singers presented an unusual concert on La Contenance Angloise: The English Influence on Franco-Flemish Renaissance Music. Directed by Carmen Cavallaro, the 16-voice women’s choir was accompanied by Marilyn Fung, viola da gamba; Gail Arnold, bray harp; Beth Gilford, recorder; and Laura Crytzer, sackbut.
The concert included works by Dunstable and Dufay, as well as other English and Flemish composers transitioning from the Late Middle Ages into the Early Renaissance. Psalms and motets were punctuated by Gregorian chants, and the choir was joined by guest soprano Deborah Friauff for Dufay's lament on the loss of Constantinople in 1453.
La Contenance Angloise, the English Manner, is a distinctive style of polyphony developed in fifteenth-century England. A phrase coined by French poet Martin le Franc, the Contenance referred to a characteristically English sound found in the music of composers such as John Dunstable, which greatly influenced the major Burgundian composers Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois. Its full, rich harmonies were popular in the fashionable Burgundian court of Philip the Good, and as a result influenced European music of the era in general.
The Many Faces of Henry Purcell - May 31st, 2015
The Ann Arbor Grail Singers celebrated the genius of English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a program of sacred motets and operatic excerpts. Directed by Carmen Cavallaro, the 16-voice women’s choir was accompanied by Daniel Foster and Mary Riccardi, Baroque violin; Linda Speck, viola; Debra Lonergan, viola da gamba; Beth Gilford, recorder; and Anne Crawford, chamber organ.
The concert began with Purcell’s sacred works, including the Funeral Sentences written for the funeral of Queen Mary II in 1695 and performed at Purcell’s own funeral later the same year. The motel “Oh Sing unto the Lord” alternates vocal sections with interludes by a string quartet.
After intermission were excerpts from the Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, which recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, and her despair when he abandons her. The music includes the dramatic witches’ scenes and “Dido’s Lament,” the latter sung by guest artist Norma Gentile.
A Garland of Madrigals ~ December 14th, 2014
This unusual concert featured secular and sacred music by a little-known Italian Renaissance composer, Vittoria Aleotti. Directed by Carmen Cavallaro, the 17-voice women’s choir was accompanied by Debra Lonergan, viola da gamba; Beth Gilford, recorder; and Anne Crawford, chamber organ.
Aleotti was a musical prodigy: as a young child she was present during her older sister’s music lessons, and so astonished her father and the music teacher with what she absorbed that she was given music lessons of her own. She began studying music at the renowned convent of San Vito in Ferrara at the age of 6 or 7. The 21 madrigals that open the concert were written before she entered the convent at age 14, and later published as Ghirlanda de madrigali, a Garland of Madrigals.
At San Vito, where she ultimately became director of music, Aleotti composed the motets that comprise the second half of the Grail Singers’ concert. Published in 1593 as Sacrae cantiones, her motets were the first book of sacred music by a woman to appear in print.
About the Composer
Vittoria Aleotti was born in Ferrara to the prominent architect Giovanni Battista Aleotti, and was mentioned in his will, written in 1631. According to her father, Vittoria became interested in music after listening to her older sister being taught music. Within a year, Vittoria had mastered singing and the harpsichord so well that she was sent to study with Alessandro Milleville and Ercole Pasquini. At the age of 6 or 7, after working with Pasquini, it was suggested that Vittoria be sent to Ferrara’s San Vito, a convent famous for fostering musical talents. By the age of 14, Vittoria chose to enter the convent and dedicate her life to service.
There has been controversy about the composer’s identity, because her sacred motets were published under the name Raffaella Aleotti. Giovanni Battista Aleotti is said to have had five daughters and there is no record of a daughter named Raffaella, so it is assumed that Vittoria changed her name after entering the convent. After 1593, Vittoria is never heard of again, while Raffaella gained fame for her musical abilities.
The convent of San Vito in Ferrara was a music training institution, and Raffaella Aleotti was the music director. No male teachers were brought in to teach the young women. Raffaella directed the concerto grande, an ensemble of twenty-three singers as well as instrumentalists, trained women musicians within the convent, and taught young children in the public sphere. She even taught musical instruments that women were not usually permitted to play such as the cornetti, trombone, violin, viole bastarde, cornamuses (bagpipes), and flutes.
Hercole Bottrigari states in his Il Desiderio of 1594, a dialogue on the musical practice at San Vito: “It appeared to me that the persons who ordinarily participated in this concert were not human, bodily creatures, but were truly angelic spirits. Nor must you imagine that I refer to the beauty of face and richness of garments and clothing, for you would err greatly, since one sees only the most modest grace and pleasing dress and humble department in them.”
About the Music
In 1591, Vittoria published a single madrigal (Di pallide viole), in a musical anthology: Il giardino de musici ferraresi. Two years later, she set music to eight poems by Giovanni Battista Guarini, which her father later sent to Count del Zaffo, who had them printed in Venice by Giacomo Vincenti. This book of madrigals was entitled Ghirlanda de madrigali a quatro voci.
Ghirlanda de madrigali contains eighteen four-voice madrigals for soprano (canto), alto, tenor, and bass. The madrigals are short, with imitative sections that alternate with chordal sections, and with the expected meter changes from duple to triple. Duets and trios are common in the musical fabric. Dissonance is carefully placed both in the melody as well as in the supporting harmonies. In the Grail Singers concert, the top three parts are sung by the choir, and the bass part is played by the viola da gamba.
In the same year as the book of madrigals was published, Raffaella published a book of motets, for which she wrote the dedication herself. Printed by Amadino in 1593, Sacrae cantiones quinque, septem, octo, & decem vocibus decantande, was the first sacred book of music by a woman to appear in print.
2013-2014 Season
Our Spring 2014 concert was a “Renaissance and Baroque Birthday Bash” featuring sacred and secular music by composers born in 1464, 1514, 1564, and 1714. The major work was the rarely performed Magnificat by Robert Fayrfax (1464 - 1521), a complex polyphonic motet interleaved with Gregorian chant. In addition to the sacred music, the concert showcased songs written by English composers Thomas Arne, Robert Johnson, and Thomas Morley to lyrics by Shakespeare (1564 – 1616).
In November 2013, we presented a concert of sacred and secular music from Spain and Spanish-influenced America, accompanied by Debra Lonergan, viola da gamba; Beth Gilford, recorders; Rex Benincasa, percussion; and Anne Crawford, chamber organ. The first half of the program featured Renaissance and Baroque music from the New World—Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru. The second half of the program was based on the Cancionero de Medinaceli manuscript from the Duke of Medinaceli's library, compiled in the late 16th century and considered one of the most important collections of Spanish secular music of the Renaissance. The pieces include dances, villancicos, and madrigal-like songs.
2012-2013 Season
Our May 2013 concert illustrated the evolution of sacred music from 1150 to the present. It followed choral music from early polyphony through a rarely-heard Renaissance work by Francisco de Montanos (1528-1595) and a variety of Baroque and Classical works, to modern works in the early music tradition such as a motet by Grail Singers director Carmen Cavallaro based on the chant Alma Redemptoris Mater. The cornerstone of the program was Pergolesi’s moving Stabat Mater for women’s voices (1736).
In December 2012, the Grail Singers and guest artist Kiri Tollaksen (cornetto) gave the Michigan premiere of a 12th-century St. James Mass. The Codex Calixtinus was compiled in the 12th century as advice for pilgrims following the Way of St. James across southern France to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. The Codexincludes the St. James Mass the Grail Singers performed, as well as other text and music for use by pilgrims. The chants in this Mass predate Gregorian chant, and the work also includes one of the earliest known examples of three-part polyphony.
2011 – 2012 Season (and earlier)
In November 2011, the Grail Singers and guest soloist Lorna Young Hildebrandt (a Grail Singers alumna) performed the Ann Arbor premiere of a Gasparini Mass in five parts for high voices. Debra Lonergan and Shin Hwang accompanied the choir on viola da gamba and chamber organ. We recorded the Mass in December 2011, and performed it again in Adrian in May 2012.
Gasparini composed the Mass for the women singers of the Pio Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, where he was Maestro di Coro from 1701 to 1713 and employed Antonio Vivaldi. Although not as well-known as his famous subordinate, Gasparini composed dozens of operas as well as sacred music. He was thought to have studied under Corelli, and one of his students was Domenico Scarlatti.
For these concerts—and the recording—Grail Singers’ director Carmen Cavallaro prepared a new edition of this unusual piece, long out of print. To ensure the accuracy of their performing Concerts for Grail Singers Website Page 1 August 27, 2014 edition, the Grail Singers commissioned photographs of the composer’s autograph score from its owner, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.
In 2010 and earlier in 2011, the Grail Singers presented two other programs. The February and March 2011 concerts featured liturgical music of the Spanish Renaissance, with a special focus on Tomás Luis de Victoria, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his death. Other Spanish composers on the program included Cristobal de Morales and Francisco de Montanos.
Our May 2010 concert showcased Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music based on the Marian antiphons, four Gregorian chants sung in honor of the Virgin Mary: Alma Redemptoris Mater, Ave Regina Caelorum, Regina Caeli, and Salve Regina. The program included works by Palestrina, Lully, Grandi, Vizzana, and medieval composer Lionel Power; it concluded with the dynamic Credidi by Nicola Porpora.