On January 5th, members of Collectio Musicorum dominated a session at the Modern Language Association conference in New York City. The session was devoted to troubadour music, and featured Dr. Jeff Dailey and Christopher Thompson (who also sang and played the harp) giving papers and two additional members--Elizabeth Bates and Patrick Fennig--performing selections from the 12th and 13th centuries. Dr. Dailey spoke about the surviving alba repertoire--music describing adulterous relationship and Mr. Thompson talked and demonstrated how to devise harp accompaniments for monophonic songs.
NEW YORK EARLY MUSIC CELEBRATION 2017
an Early Music Foundation Service Project
For a listing of the other Celebration Events, go to: www.NYEMC.org
Collectio Musicorum has been awarded a grant from the Kurt Weill Foundation to present a performance of Weill's Frauentanz, a work for soprano and chamber ensemble based on medieval texts. We will include this in an upcoming performance devoted to the Minnesänger, which will also feature a piece by Weill's teacher, Ferruccio Busoni, along with Minnelieder. Stay tuned for more details.
We are happy to announce that several local politicians have written letters of support regarding the grant proposal that we submitted to the Brooklyn Arts Council. They are, in alphabetical order, Congressman Daniel Donovan, State Senator Martin Golden, and Assemblymember Pamela Harris. Please join us in thanking them for encouraging the work we do.
On February 13th, Dr. Dailey gave a paper at the winter meeting of the American Musicological Society's Greater New York Chapter at Columbia University. Entitled "The Dance of Heresy--Music for the Female Pope," it shows the relationship between "La Manfredina," a dance in British Museum MS Add. 29987 and Manfreda da Pirovano, who was appointed popess by a religious group called the "Gugliemites," followers of St. Guglielma, whom they believed was the bodily incarnation of the Holy Spirit. Collectio Musicorum performed "La Manfredina" in its concert at the Boston Early Music Festival, and will be performing it again in the future.