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The Marchesa: Isabella d’Este

A co-production with Piffaro

7, 8, 9 February 2020

Marchesa Isabella d'Este

Friday, February 7th at 8:00 pm
(pre-concert chat at 7:30 pm)
Ruggles Hall at Newberry Library
60 W Walton St, Chicago, IL 60610
Complimentary wine and prosecco available to ticket holders
before concert and at intermission.

Saturday, February 8th at 8:00 pm
(pre-concert chat at 7:30 pm)
International House, University of Chicago
1414 E 59th St, Chicago, IL 60637

Sunday, February 9th at 3:00 pm
(pre-concert chat at 2:30 pm)
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
939 Hinman Ave, Evanston, IL 60202

This program honors the great Isabella d’Este, a politician, mother, taste-maker, musician, writer, art collector, and one of the most important patrons of the Italian Renaissance. These concerts feature the frottole, an Italian song form that propagated at Isabella d’Este’s Mantuan court. Isabella commissioned her favorite poets and composers including Josquin des Prez (c. 1450-1521), Bartolomeo Tromboncino (d. 1534) and Marco Cara (d. 1525) to craft these short, amorous songs, which she herself enjoyed performing. Soprano Ellen Hargis gives voice to this sensual Italian poetry accompanied by a variety of Renaissance instruments, including guitar, lute, shawms, recorders, and strings.

Purchase Tickets - The Marchesa: Isabella d’Este

Featured vocalists:
Ellen Hargis, soprano & co-director

Featured instrumentalists:
David Douglass, violin & co-director
Tim Macdonald, violin
Brandi Berry Benson, viola
Allison Monroe, viola
Jeremy David Ward, bass violin
Brandon Acker, lute & guitar

Members of Piffaro, The Renaissance Band:
Joan Kimball, co-director
Bob Wiemken, co-director
Grant Herreid
Priscilla Herreid
Greg Ingalls
Eric Schmalz
learn more about Piffaro

With projections by Shawn Keener

Scroll Down to Learn More About Our Artists, View Videos and Read our Blog

View the Marchesa Program

View the Marchesa Program Notes

Tickets: $50 Preferred Seating, $40 General Admission, $10 student tix (available on-line or at-door)

Please note seats at all Newberry Consort venues are not assigned. Seating is divided into two sections: Preferred Seating and General Admission. Student ticket-holders must sit in the General Admission section. If you require special accommodation, please contact us in advance at manager@newberryconsort.org and we will assist you.

Purchase Tickets - The Marchesa: Isabella d’Este

View the videos below to listen to musical highlights and more about our special guests, Piffaro!

The Marchesa Blog

blogThe Marchesa

Ilz Fantasie – Josquin

By | Feb 6, 2020 | 0 Comments

Click below for another tantalizing preview of the beautiful Italian Renaissance music you will hear at these special concerts. In this clip, taken from a live performance, Piffaro musicians play Josquin's "Ilz Fantazie" which will be performed at our concerts Feb....

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blogThe Marchesa

Who was Isabella d’Este?

By | Jan 10, 2020 | 0 Comments

February 7-9, 2020, we bring music from the unique court of Isabella d’Este to Chicagoland stages. These concerts, a collaboration with acclaimed Renaissance wind band Piffaro [link to website] will prominently feature our own Ellen Hargis performing frottole, a...

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Marchesa Isabella d'Este
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Chicago, IL 60660-0212

PHONE: 773-669-7335

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reviews

Newberry Consort’s lively “Mexican Christmas” warms up a chilly night

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Katherine Buzard
Chicago Classical Review

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Henry Fogel
Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2021

A Mexican Christmas 2019

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Vocal Arts Chicago - Editor's Notes

The Empress: Margarita Teresa – Salomé Sandoval

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Vocal Arts Chicago - Editor's Notes
www.vocalartschicago.com/editors-notes/

Newberry Consort mixes the sacred and secular with flair in “A Mexican Christmas”

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chicagoclassicalreview.com/2019/12/newberry-consort-mixes-the-sacred-and-profane-with-flair-in-a-mexican-christmas/

Newberry Consort wraps season with a delightful French Banquet

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Lawrence A. Johnson
Chicago Classical Review

In luminous concert, Newberry Consort recalls music of Spanish Jews in Renaissance tumult

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Lawrence B. Johnson
Chicago on the Aisle

Review: Consort, Josefowicz seize the musical road less traveled

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John von Rhein
Chicago Tribune

Early Sephardic music proves timeless in Newberry Consort program

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Tim Sawyier
Chicago Classical Review

Recommended Chicago-area classical concerts (excerpt)

Newberry Consort: Chicago’s flagship early music ensemble begins its 31st anniversary season with “Sacred Love,” music of faith and longing from Renaissance Spain and the Ladino oral tradition of the Sephardic Jews. 8 p.m. Friday, Galvin Recital Hall, Northwestern University, 70 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston; 8 p.m. Saturday, Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago, 915 E. 60th St.; and 3 p.m. Sunday, Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, 610 S. Michigan Ave.; www.newberryconsort.org Read full article

John von Rhein
Chicago Tribune

Newberry Consort to perform early Sephardic music at the Logan Center

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EVAN HAMIN, Herald Intern
Hyde Park Herald

Music of Sephardic Jews comes to Chicago

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Ellen Braunstein, Special to Chicago Jewish News
Chicago Jewish News

Newberry Consort closes season with a tribute to a singular Swedish queen

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Lawrence A. Johnson
Chicago Classical Review

Review: A diverse and surprising program was devoted to the obscure music of 15th-century Austrian Oswald von Wolkenstein.

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Kyle MacMillan
Chicago on the Aisle

Review: Newberry Consort pays homage to the versatile Count von Wolkenstein

Sat Jan 14, 2017 at 1:49 pm By Tim Sawyier The Newberry Consort performed music of Count von Wolkenstein Friday night at the Newberry Library. The Newberry Consort presented the second program of their 30th anniversary season Friday night at the Newberry Library’s Ruggles Hall. Entitled “The Count,” the concert was devoted to music of Count Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376-1445), a peripatetic nobleman with the singular pastime of recording his personal exploits and musings in song. The performance successfully overcame the… Read more “Review: Newberry Consort pays homage to the versatile Count von Wolkenstein”

Tim Sawyier
Chicago Classical Review

Evening of scholarly clowning opens 30th year for early-music masters the Newberry Consort

Review: A program of bawdy Elizabethan amusements performed by the Newberry Consort and period comedian Steven Player. By Lawrence B. Johnson For the perennially devoted followers of the Newberry Consort, which this season celebrates its 30th anniversary of presenting concerts of music from the Middle Ages to the Baroque, the concert experience is a beguiling paradox: entertainment that’s very old and yet at the same time quite new. “For us, and we believe for our audience, this music is essentially about… Read more “Evening of scholarly clowning opens 30th year for early-music masters the Newberry Consort”

Lawrence B. Johnson
Chicago on the Aisle

Newberry Consort opens 30th season with delightful “stage jigs”

Tim Sawyier – Chicago Classical Review above – Steven Player performed in the Newberry Consort’s season-opening program Friday night at Ruggles Hall. Friday night in Ruggles Hall the Newberry Library hosted the opening performance of its eponymous Consort’s 30th anniversary season. The program, entitled “The Clown: Kemp’s Jig,” compellingly explored late 16- and early 17-century stage jigs as part of the Library’s commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death this year. A “stage jig” is not an isolated dance but a… Read more “Newberry Consort opens 30th season with delightful “stage jigs””

Tim Sawyier
Chicago Classical Review

Newberry Consort sings the bawdy electric in spirited season opener

Early music groups come and go in Chicago, but the ensemble that started it all continues to thrive, setting an example of artistic integrity and sound management for the groups that have followed in its wake. Having survived a serious funding crisis in 1997 and the retirement of founder Mary Springfels, the Newberry Consort soldiered on, wisely staying small, flexible and true to its musical mission, dusting off forgotten but worthwhile preclassical instrumental and vocal works and presenting them in… Read more “Newberry Consort sings the bawdy electric in spirited season opener”

John von Rhein, Contact Reporter
Chicago Tribune

NEWBERRY CONSORT REVEALS SOARING MUSIC FROM MEXICAN CHOIR BOOKS

The Newberry Consort is completing its season this weekend by returning to the Newberry Library’s collection of choir books from the Convent of Our Lady of the Incarnation in Mexico City for a program of vespers music by Mexican Baroque composer Juan de Lienas. To say he is little-known is an understatement. Beyond the Newberry choirbooks, his music is found in only one other Mexican source, and no facts have emerged about his life. Apart from the music — an… Read more “NEWBERRY CONSORT REVEALS SOARING MUSIC FROM MEXICAN CHOIR BOOKS”

Alan Artner
freelance critic

A SPLENDID EVENING WITH THE NEWBERRY CONSORT

Lots of concerts are presented under an umbrella title that attempts to both accurately describe the links among the various works performed and offers an appealing concept to the public. But usually the concept is over-broad (“Love and War”) with the music unable to effectively support the dramatic idea. The Newberry Consort, on the other hand, offered a concept concert here in Hyde Park Saturday night at the Logan Center which was an entertaining story told in instrumental music, solo… Read more “A SPLENDID EVENING WITH THE NEWBERRY CONSORT”

M.L. RANTALA
Classical Music Critic

Newberry Consort brings scholarship and horse sense to delightful “Le roman de Fauvel”

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Chicago Classical Review

Ten New Classical Albums

Featuring Chicago Talent Newberry’s nuns highlight recent classical albums “Musica Celestial from the Covent of the Encarnacion.” (Newberry Consort): The manuscript source of this attractive program of Renaissance and baroque rarities for women’s voices, organ and other instruments is six valuable choir books preserved at Chicago’s Newberry Library. Written for the singing nuns of the Order of the Immaculate Conception in Mexico City, the pieces suggest the richly diverse musical culture that was enshrined in the convents. Performances under the… Read more “Ten New Classical Albums”

John von Rhein
Chicago Tribune

The Newberry Consort Unveils Rare Spanish Treasures for BEMF

In certain medieval manuscripts, music and image combine to evoke powerful religious feelings. Take, for example, the sources for the Cantigas de Santa Maria, where colorful drawings of musicians, saints, and nobles frame music and poetry that tell of miracles performed by the Virgin Mary. Gazing at the manuscript, one can catch a glimpse of the celebratory religious culture the authors were trying to convey from across the centuries. Friday night at the First Church in Cambridge, the Chicago-based Newberry… Read more “The Newberry Consort Unveils Rare Spanish Treasures for BEMF”

Boston Classical Review

Newberry Consort full of spirit, polish with program of rediscoveries

Two decades ago this month the Newberry Consort was among the first historically informed performing groups in the United States to revive the music of Baroque composer Johann Rosenmuller. But some artists successful in their own time nonetheless require periodic revival thereafter, and as consort co-director David Douglass said at Friday night’s concert opening the season at Newberry Library, “Rosenmuller is rediscovered every five years.” The all-Rosenmuller program drew heavily on the group’s 1995 compact disc, presenting five selections from… Read more “Newberry Consort full of spirit, polish with program of rediscoveries”

Alan Artner, freelance critic
Copyright © 2015, Chicago Tribune

Smooth control of the phrasing and fine communication with the singers, effects that seemed to lay each song in a feathery bed of accompaniment

In certain medieval manuscripts, music and image combine to evoke powerful religious feelings. Take, for example, the sources for the Cantigas de Santa Maria, where colorful drawings of musicians, saints, and nobles frame music and poetry that tell of miracles performed by the Virgin Mary. Gazing at the manuscript, one can catch a glimpse of the celebratory religious culture the authors were trying to convey from across the centuries. Friday night at the First Church in Cambridge, the Chicago-based Newberry… Read more “Smooth control of the phrasing and fine communication with the singers, effects that seemed to lay each song in a feathery bed of accompaniment”

Boston Classical Review

Sounds of autumn: A 2014 music preview

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M.L. RANTALA, Classical Music Critic
Hyde Park Herald

Newberry Consort’s Singing Nuns

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John von Rhein
Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune: Review Feast of the Pheasant

Friday night at the Newberry Library the Newberry Consort celebrated one of the most spectacular and outlandish banquets in history. Almost 460 years to the day, the ensemble presented a 90-minute program of music, projections and narration to commemorate the Feast of the Oath of the Pheasant. This party, given by Philip, Duke of Burgundy, was to urge a crusade against the Ottoman Turks who nine months before had taken the holy city of Constantinople. The early-music community has for… Read more “Chicago Tribune: Review Feast of the Pheasant”

Alan G. Artner, Special to the Tribune
Chicago Tribune

Feast of the Pheasant

“…spiritedly played and sung… early music at its committed best.”

Alan Artner
The Chicago Tribune

Early Music America – Fall 2013

A highlight of the (BEMF) festival was a superb multimedia presentation by the Newberry Consort in Jordan Hall on Thursday afternoon drawn from the 13th-century Cantigas de Santa Maria,a manuscript attributed to Spanish ruler and arts patron Alfonso X. This stellar Chicago ensemble, directed by David Douglass (vielle and rebec) and Ellen Hargis (soprano), performed a dozen richly multicultural cantigas, while projecting the brightly colored illustrations that originally accompanied them onto an overhead screen, along with translations of the lyrics.… Read more “Early Music America – Fall 2013”

“Celestial Sirens” at the Church of the Covenant

The overlapping musical talents and resources of Cleveland’s early music community were in full multi-tasking mode at the Church of the Covenant last week — with some help from Chicago and Tennessee. The occasion was one event in celebration of the church’s magnificent new tracker organ, modeled on north German 17th-century organs. The organ was built by the Tennessee firm of Richards, Fowkes and Company and installed only this January. It replaces a small gallery organ in the back of… Read more ““Celestial Sirens” at the Church of the Covenant”

Nicholas Jones
ClevelandClassical.com

‘Cantigas’ Bloom Like Roses at Boston Festival

There are few places on earth where an audience can enjoy a purely magical performance of Medieval song in a glorious hall. The Boston Early Music Festival is on that short list. The music: Cantigas de Santa Maria, by Alfonso X. The performers: the Newberry Consort with the vocal ensemble Exsultemus. The place: New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. The Cantigas de Santa Maria consists of 420 poems set to music, attributed to Alfonso X, King of Castile, Leon, and Galicia during the 13th century. Alfonso was known as El Sabio,… Read more “‘Cantigas’ Bloom Like Roses at Boston Festival”

Ken Keaton