Cappella Clausura, Inc.

Cappella Clausura’s name honors the extraordinary body of music written by cloistered nuns of 17th century Italy who, in the language of the time, were said to be “in clausura:” covered, hidden away, segregated from public life. These gifted and musically educated individuals—such as Raffaella Aleotti, Chiara Cozzolani, Bianca Maria Meda, Caterina Assandra and Sulpitia Cesis—became our first hist

orical community of recognized women composers. Cappella Clausura has performed and recorded their music with dedication, and will continue to do so. And we take the name “Clausura” as a metaphor for the cultural obstacles faced by women composers throughout history. Over the last ten years, Cappella Clausura has performed an ever-widening repertoire for enthusiastic audiences in concert halls, churches and academic settings. This repertoire includes music by medieval composers Hildegard von Bingen, Kassia, and the anonymous Trobairitz/Trouvères (troubadours); Renaissance composers Vittoria Aleotti and Sulpitia Cesis; Baroque composers named above as well Isabella Leonarda, Barbara Strozzi and Elizaberth Jacquet de la Guerre; Classical composers Mariana von Martines (whom we have dubbed “the female Mozart”); Romantic composer-performers Clara Wieck Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel; and the 20th-21st century’s Rebecca Clarke, Erna Woll, Patricia Van Ness, Abbie Betinis, Sinta Wuller, Emma Lou Diemer, and Hilary Tann. Program highlights through the years have included our acclaimed production of Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum, which we consider the first opera by a woman composer; Passionately UnConventional: works by women of the Italian Baroque; and A Renaissance Christmas Pageant with music spanning four centuries, ornamented by modern dance and puppetry. Upcoming highlights of the 2013-14 season are the March release of our premier recording of the complete Ghirlanda di Madrigali, eighteen madrigals by the Renaissance teenaged prodigy Vittoria Aleotti; the October 5-6 program Rebecca Clarke and her Circle:Vaughan Williams, Britten, and Palestrina, which includes Clarke’s complete a cappella output in the context of music by her colleagues and influences; and Illuminations, a performance-installation piece featuring a day in the life of a 16th century Belgian convent, its music, food, costumes, scribes, and its recently discovered illuminated ceremonial antiphonal.