Friday, March 31 at 4PM: 

  • Ryan Concert Hall, Smith Center for the Arts
  • Providence College, Providence RI
  • Free and open to the public

Saturday, April 1 at 7PM

  • Church of the Covenant
  • 67 Newbury Street, Boston

CARD TO CULTURE

La Donna Musicale believes that the arts should be accessible to everyone!

That’s why we are proud to partner with the Mass Cultural Council – in collaboration with the Department of Transitional Assistance, the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) Nutrition Program, and the Massachusetts Health Connector to offer – the Card to Culture program. It is the most comprehensive effort of its kind in the nation to open doors to arts and culture experiences for low-income families. Please see the full list of participating organizations that offer EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare discounts.

Card to Culture allows EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare cardholders to attend all events at La Donna Musicale for free. This very special Card to Culture $free pass ticket price offers the experience of music performances and concerts.

EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare cardholders must present their card in person at each La Donna Musicale event to receive the Card to Culture $free pass ticket price. There is a maximum of four (4) tickets per cardholder per event.

If you have any other questions, we are happy to help and provide answers. Please write to this email: ladonna@ladm.org, and we will collaborate with you to answer all your inquiries.

This Arts Access program is not funded by MCC, MDTA, or taxpayers.

The Spirit Transformed:

Women and 17th Century French Sacred Songs

This concert features non-liturgical 17th-century French-language sacred songs conceived primarily for women by Catholic priests in response to the Protestant Reformation.  Fundamental to the post-reformation Catholic Reform was the need to reach out to members of the laity, especially women of all classes, by creating a musical repertory to prevent conversions to Protestantism and to facilitate a deeper spiritual experience and knowledge of Catholic doctrine.  Sacred songs also served a variety of social functions, particularly educational, devotional, and recreational. Most interesting was the use of popular song forms, either tunes already in circulation with secular texts replaced by religious lyrics or newly composed sacred songs by notable composers like Bertrand de Bacilly, Michel Lambert, and André Campra.  This beautiful repertory, never heard in performance before, features songs for one, two, and three voices accompanied by basso continuo, violin, and flute.

OUR UPCOMING EVENTS

2022- 2023

A combination of pre-lecture concerts, live performance, and pre-recorded performances in which we re-invent both ourselves and Early Music. And as always, honoring minorities and presenting educational programs for youth.

season concert image

 

SPRING CONCERTS

O Maria! Baroque Women Composers

This concert focuses on Baroque Italian women composers, featuring their settings of prayers to the Virgin, a powerful Stabat Mater, and a dialogue between

Mary and Eve–the mother of God and the mother of humankind. The concert includes the extraordinary motet In tribunale horendo that portrays the Virgin Mary as the protector of humans on earth and in Heaven. It also includes a motet for two voices that portrays the martyrdom and invincibility of St. Christina. Vocal music will be interspersed with instrumental music by Isabella Leonarda and others.

Music by Barbara Strozzi, Isabella Leonarda, Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, Rosa Giacinta Badalla, Bianca Maria Meda and others.

Saturday, May 13 at 7:30PM 

Monadnock Center for History and Culture

Peterborough, NH 03458

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Sunday, May 14 at 4PM 

The Covenant Church, Boston

TICKETS —>

 

FALL CONCERTS (PAST)

Latin Baroque Mingling

This concert presents diverse soundscapes created by the intermixture in Latin America of the music of the Europeans, Africans and indigenous peoples commingling in the New World since the Baroque Period.

We will focus in particular on the Festivities that may have allowed social classes and cultures to coexist, even if briefly. This includes processional celebrations such as the feast of Corpus Christi and genres like the Black Villancicos or Negrillas.

The ensemble includes voices, Renaissance and Baroque guitars, viola da gamba, keyboards, as well as Latin American percussion instruments and guitars. Music from the Coimbra Manuscript, Gaspar Fernandez, and others.

Friday, October 21 at 7pm

Providence College, Providence, RI

Saturday, October 22 at 7pm

The Covenant Church,    Boston, MA

TICKETS —>

PAST LECTURES

Banner lecture

Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center presents

Music Outside the Court: Corpus Christi and Black Villancicos

Thursday, October 6 at 12:30 PM

Please register here to attend this webinar:

https://bit.ly/3SE1nmH 

Unintentionally, Corpus Christi festivities have long fostered multicultural and multiracial gatherings, creating artistic expressions in literature and music. This is a Festival in the Christian calendar envisioned by Juliana of Liège, who was a medieval mystic in what is now Belgium.

Black Villancicos were Iberian and New World polyphonic songs written using a language imitating how Africans and their descendants spoke. Music outside the court gives a glimpse of the “other”.

This lecture presents the partial findings of Laury Gutierrez’s research supported by the Tom Zajac Early Music Award. She is a Resident Scholar at the WSRC and has been a fellow at the Radcliffe College Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Ms. Gutierrez is the Artistic Director of La Donna Musicale, a research, education and performance organization devoted to the discovery, preservation, and promotion of sacred and secular music by women composers. She is also the director of Rumbarroco, a Latin-Baroque fusion ensemble with the goal of bringing cultures together through music.

Please register here to attend this webinar:

https://bit.ly/3SE1nmH

RECENT OUTREACH PROGRAMS

Play Video

Celebrating women’s history month with:
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665 – 1729)

The Spirit Transformed

Friday, March 31 at 4PM: 

  • Ryan Concert Hall, Smith Center for the Arts
  • Providence College, Providence RI
  • Free and open to the public

Saturday, April 1 at 7PM

  • Church of the Covenant
  • 67 Newbury Street, Boston

More information

The Spirit Transformed