Mignarda specializes in presenting engaging programs that illuminate the vibrant mingling of renaissance music, poetry, and thought. We're available for concerts, house concerts, lecture-recitals, or in a format tailored to meet your needs. Please contact us for details & terms.
Mignarda is available to perform the following concert programs for the 2007-08 season: (listen to clips from our CDs)
Au pres de vous
Evocative music from the 16th century courts of the Valois kings.
Divine Amarillis
The haunting and lovely tunes of the early 17th century French court, as captured on our CD of the same name.
Goe, nightly cares
Featuring multi-layered Jacobean era music and poetry, & lighter fare in the form of French dances & courtly airs.
In a Garden So Green
Tender ballads known to have caused grown men to cry and quirky Scots tunes demonstrated to have caused persons with two left feet to actually tap them in time to the music!
Italia Mia
A sumptuous pastiche of 16th century Italian music, including familiar tunes later arranged by Ottorino Respighi in his popular "Ancient Airs & Dances".
The King's Music
Music centered around the court of Henry VIII, whose appetite for music matched that of his more famous tastes.
Mi Fa Morire (or, Fun with the hexachord)
English & Italian music for lute and voices by Elizabethan lute virtuoso and composer, John Dowland and his Italian contemporaries Luca Marenzio, Angelo Notari, and Claudio Monteverdi.
Music from the Court of Henri III
A sampling of French airs & French and Polish lute solos by Jacob Reys, lutenist to Henri III.
My Lord of Oxenford's Maske: Edward de Vere and his circle
Features English songs with poetry attributed to Oxford and lute solos with dedications bearing his name. From our CD of the same name.
Noel Nouvellet
A festive selection of ancient carols for the Christmas season.
Orpheus & Cupid
The less melancholy side of Elizabethan composer and lute virtuoso, John Dowland (Orpheus Anglicus), and his successor to the title, Henry Purcell (Orpheus Britannicus), blended with a beguiling selection of Scots tunes.
Psalms & Measured Verse
A special program of 16th century French music, featuring psalm & song settings of the poetry of Marot and Ronsard.
Rondeau: A Fresh Look at Music of the 15th Century
An enchanting immersion into the earliest examples of lute songs from 15th century France by composers Ockeghem, Busnois, Ghizeghem and Morton. Also featured will be Italian lute solos from the earliest surviving lute manuscripts and published sources, and the dynamic frottole of Tromboncino and Cara.
This Merry Pleasant Spring
A seasonal program celebrating springtime and the natural world.
Teares & Sighs: A Valentine to John Dowland
Dowland's finest masterpieces of melancholy from 'A Pilgrim's Solace', his last book of songs.
LECTURE/RECITAL PROGRAMS
The Mignarda lutesong duo's engaging lecture-recitals illuminate the link between renaissance art, music, poetry, and literature. Students at all levels of art history, English renaissance literature, historical music survey courses, and interdisciplinary seminars are universally fascinated to see and hear our contextual examples presented in a format tailored to meet your needs.
This is a representative sampling of some of our more popular lectures, but is by no means comprehensive. Contact us and see what we can create together to help you bring history to life for your students.
Art & Music in the Stuart Age: Six Portraits
Appreciation for fine art is heightened by an understanding of the cultural context in which the art was created. This presentation features five figures who were the subject of portraits by prominent artists circa 1620-1640: Constantijn Huygens, Lady Mary Killigrew, John Donne, Jacques Gaultier, and Nicholas Lanier. We offer a bit of background on these five figures and discuss their inter-relationships which were, not surprisingly, centered around music.
Music & poetry 1500-1690
This program presents a survey of musical settings of poetry known to have a separate non-musical provenance in published sources. Poets represented include Francesco Petrarch, Clement Marot, Shakespeare, Samuel Daniel, John Donne, and Robert Herrick.
Music in the plays of Shakespeare
Music was integral to Shakespeare's plays and is featured more prominently than is apparent to the reader. This program identifies many of the musical references in selected plays and presents several songs and ballad tunes with a contextual discussion.
Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets are treated as the culmination of a refined art that was, like so much Elizabethan culture, imported from Italy. The form of the sonnet is traced with Italian examples as well as English antecedents of Shakespeake's sonnets. The program elucidates modes of performance of the sonnet with a background discussion touching on Rhetoric and Oratory. The program presents examples of musical accompaniment to the recitation of selected Shakespeare sonnets using sixteenth century music that fits with the metrical structure of the poems.
Song settings of poetry by Sir Philip Sidney
Even in his own time, Sidney was recognized as the ideal Elizabethan courtier and several musical settings survive from his remarkable literary output. This program presents songs set by John Dowland and Thomas Morley as well as anonymous song settings and lute solos that can be traced to Sidney and his circle.
Lecture-recital programs are presented in an engaging lecture demonstration format and are performed in an historically informed manner with voice and lute. Student participation is typically a part of every presentation with ample discussion and materials for visual reinforcement. The programs may be tailored to a fifty-minute classroom presentation or in an expanded ninety minute lecture concert presentation.
For further details and information on booking, fees and availability, please contact us.
