Just under the wire on the West Coast, a very happy birthday to George Frideric Handel...

Some very fond #Waybackwednesday memories from this dream-come-true role debut back in 2019 with my friends at Boston Baroque...

“The woman of the future with her broader outlook for greater opportunities will go far, I believe, in creative work of every description...”

— CÉCILE CHAMINADE

When Cécile Chaminade speculated in the Washington Post about the increased scope of possibility for women artists of the future, her optimism would not prove unfounded…

The path of progress is rarely a straight line, and as women’s access to music education increased through the years of the Enlightenment, there remained a resistance to the idea of women’s use of that education in the public sphere. There was a stigma of impropriety associated with women who entered the public sphere as professional musicians…

Another composer featured this Thursday evening as we begin our nearly 5-century exploration of music by composed by women for San Francisco Performances’ Salon series is Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. The daughter of a harpsichord-maker and organist, Elisabeth Jacquet was trained by her father in music and displayed exceptional talent at the harpsichord from a young age. She was taken into the French court…

“…show the world the futile error of men who believe themselves patrons of the high gifts of intellect, which according to them cannot also be held in the same way by women.” — MADDALENA CASULANA

In 1568, Maddalena Casulana published her First Book of Madrigals, the first complete volume of music by a woman to be published in recorded western music history. The quote above is excerpted from her dedication in the front of the book…

Have a case of the Mondays? Urban Dictionary defines “a case of the Mondays” as: A fictitious disorder associated with the tiredness, irritability or distractedness that comes from returning to work after the weekend.

I feel like Barbara Strozzi might have been having one when she penned this incredible song…

The opening lines of Antonio Bembo’s Passan veloci l’ore really rings true in the context of this seemingly never-ending pandemic:

The hours pass by quickly
and yet that time does not arrive….