FROM GHETTO TO CAPPELLA Interfaith Exchanges in the Music of Baroque Italy

While the Inquisition raged throughout Counter-Reformation Italy, the ghetto walls that separated Gentile from Jew were more porous than impenetrable. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, we explore the cross-fertilization of Jewish and Catholic musical cultures that enriched the music of both synagogue and sanctuary. Works of Benedetto Marcello, Francesco Durante, Barbara Strozzi, Salomone Rossi, and unaccompanied Hebrew chants attest to a lively conversation, as do selections from the 1759 Hebrew libretto of Handel's Esther, commissioned by the Jewish community of Amsterdam in the year of the composer's death. The exquisite 1607 library of the Fabbri Mansion, transported from Urbania, Italy during World War I, sets the stage for an international ensemble who come together to perform a unique program of unexamined treasures. 
Concert From Ghetto to Cappella: Interfaith Exchanges in the Music of Baroque Italy Jessica Gould, soprano & Noa Frenkel, contralto Diego Cantalupi & Diego Leverić, lutes James Waldo, viola da gamba Pedro d'Aquino, harpsichord and organ.