.Berkeley Festival & Exhibition: Mecca for Early Music

Back in early-17th-century Italy, women had two options: either they were married off or they were sent to a convent. Luckily for Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, her fate took her to the latter. Confined at Santa Radegonda in Milan for her entire adult life (along with her sister, aunt, and nieces), Cozzolani not only avoided high odds of death during childbirth, but she also skirted the bubonic plague, which ravaged the country (and its male musicians) from 1629 in 1631. She ended up becoming one of the finest — not to mention one of the few female — composers in the baroque period, according to Warren Stewart, artistic director of the San Francisco-based Magnificat Baroque Ensemble.

“She was writing her music for this group of people she lived with every day,” said Stewart. “It’s very technically demanding music, very complex music — it changed meters very frequently. It’s a special, unique sound.” Stewart’s ensemble, Magnificat, will perform motets by Cozzolani at the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition, on Friday, June 11, at the First Congregational Church. He says the concert will include five all-women singers ranging from high soprano to what’s essentially a tenor range to perform the music, which back then was sung by the cloistered nuns behind a wall for visitors. “Voices cascaded over the wall like disembodied voices,” said Stewart.

Cozzolani – Deus in adiutorium by Magnificat

Deus in adiutorium by Magnificat/Musica Omnia – The Cozzolani Project

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