Il Dolce Suono: Music of Donatello's Florence. February 28th – March 12th

Contact: [email protected] (646) 470-1837

Dates, Times, and Locations:

Saturday, February 28th @ 6pm - Christ and St. Stephen's Church, 122 West 69th Street

Sunday, March 1st @ 4:30pm - The Museum of Biblical Art, 1865 Broadway at 61st Street

Thursday, March 12th @ 7pm - Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, 30 West 68th Street

Tickets: 1 888 718-4253 - http://www.salonsanctuary.org

A globally acclaimed countertenor, a celebrated medieval specialist, an organist of the Duomo of Florence, and an art historian of that city's treasures offer a compelling schedule of concerts, lectures, and a private gallery tour. Please join us in welcoming four guests from across the Atlantic for a celebration of music and art both sacred and secular, Jewish and Christian, from the halcyon days of the Tuscan capital.

Concert I: Music for Brunelleschi's Dome

Lucia Baldacci, organist

Saturday, February 28th
Pre-Concert lecture at 6pm, Concert at 7pm

Christ and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church
120 West 69th Street
New York, NY 10023

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Lucia Baldacci, organist of the Cathedral of Florence, known as the Duomo, offers a recital of works associated with Brunelleschi's architectural masterpiece, begun in 1296 by Arnolfo di Cambio and completed by Brunelleschi in 1436.

The concert will be preceded at 6pm by "L'Arte del Duomo," a lecture on the design, construction, and masterpieces of the Duomo, the first domed building erected since the Pantheon, by Dr. Giovanni Guidetti, Art Historian and Guide to the City of Florence.

Sunday, March 1st @ 4:30pm

The Museum of Biblical Art, 1865 Broadway at 61st Street
For reservations, please call 1 888 718-4253 or go to http://www.salonsanctuary.org

Private Exhibition Tour
Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral.Reservations are required for this tour

Dr. Giovanni Guidetti will conduct a private tour of the ground-breaking exhibition at the Museum of Biblical Art, which is the first time in history that the Donatello sculptures have left their home at the Museo dell'Opere del Duomo in Florence. The tour is limited to 25 people and reservations are required.

Concert II

Il Dolce Suono – Ki Kolech Arev
Jewish and Christian music from late medieval Italy

Doron Schleifer, countertenor
Corina Marti, clavisymbalum and recorders

Thursday, March 12th @ 7:00pm

The Stephen Wise Free Synagogue
30 West 68th Street
New York, NY 10023

Alongside the brilliant polyphony and lapidary songs of Florentine composers Francesco Landini and Jacopo da Bologna was a shadow world of Jewish musicians, whose beautiful and mysterious music has just begun to emerge from centuries of obscurity. Two medieval music specialists share this unique body of repertoire in a special ecumenical concert.

Artists' Biographies

Native Florentine organist Lucia Baldacci has served as organist to the Catheral of S. Maria del Fiore – the Duomo of Florence – since 2010. She is also organist at the historic Orsanmichele, S. Maria Maggiore and the Abbazia S. Salvatore and S. Lorenzo a Settimo, and has also served as organist and choir director of the Venerabile Arciconfraternita della Misericordia di Firenze (housed in the Piazza del Duomo of Florence) since 2010.

As Artistic Director and Curator, she helmed the concert season I Maggi fiorentini, la tradizione in musica al Giardino Bardini, participating also as a pianist, harpsichordist and ensemble director. In 2008, she founded the Summer Organ Festival L'Organo: Voce dell'Anima, housed in B. V. Maria Madre della Divina Provvidenza. In 2012 she founded and was the curator of Misericordia in Musica, in the Oratory of Venerabile Arciconfraternita della Misericordia, performing as a soloist and with other musicians.

In 2014 she founded and curated Abbatia de Septimo in concerto: Quattro concerti per l'anima, at the Abbazia di San Salvatore and San Lorenzo a Septimo in Scandicci (Firenze); and Primavera in musica at the Monastery of the Clarisse, in San Casciano in Val di Pesa (Firenze), appearing as both soloist and accompanist. As a choir director she founded two choirs: the Abbatiae Septimo Cantores and Estro Armonico di Firenze, with a repertoire spanning the medieval to the modern era.

Frequently invited to perform in international festivals, her appearances outside of Florence include the Organ Italian Music Academy of Pistoia (Italy); the organ festival Italiaanse Herfst in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam; the Estate Figinese: Armonie Musicali housed in the collegiate chuech of Figline Valdarno (Italy); the International Organ Festival in Valdera (Italy). In November 2013 she made her North American and New York City debut with an organ recital called Music for Brunelleschi's Dome at the church of the Transfiguration, produced and presented by Salon/Sanctuary Concerts.

As a collaborator with German violinist and curator Michael Stüve and the ensemble Musica Ricercata, she plays organ and harpsichord. In 2009, Stüve, his ensemble and the American soprano Jessica Gould joined Ms. Baldacci for a performance of Baroque French and English music at the Library of the San Marco Museum in Florence. With the same artists, in 2011 she organized a music concert Sacred Music: From Renaissance to Baroque, held in the church of S. Donnino to Campi Bisenzio (Florence).

Her interest in historical-musical research has led to regular invitations to give lectures for historical city institutions like the historical Società di San Giovanni Battista, fonded since 1797.

She is married to art historian Giovanni Guidetti

Dr. Giovanni Guidetti, a graduate of the University of Florence, has written articles on the Renaissance and Baroque architecture, sculpture, and painting of Florence for numerous publications and given talks on Renaissance Art History and curated conferences throughout Europe. He has served as scientific director of the Museo di Arte Sacra di San Donnino a Campi Bisenzio, and teaches at the Suola di Arte Sacra in collaboration with the Fondazione Opera del Duomo di Firenze.

He regularly conducts private tours in virtually all the art museums of Florence, and has guided English-speaking visitors through the Donatello sculptures in their home museum countless times throughout the past decade.

He is married to organist Lucia Baldacci

Countertenor Doron Schleifer performs regularly with the Schola Cantorum Nürnberg, directed by Pia Praetorius; with Ensemble La Morra (with which he recently recorded a CD), and with La Capella Reial de Catalunya, conducted by Jordi Savall. He is a member of the Thalamus Vocal Quartet and the all-male vocal ensemble Profeti della Quinta, with which he recently won the York Early Music International Young Artist Competition. With Profeti della Quinta he has recorded a CD of Jewish liturgical works by Salamone Rossi.

In addition, he recorded two CDs as a soloist: the first one, with the Basel Baroque Consort, containing Christian liturgical pieces from 17th century Italy; and the second CD, as the Evangelist in the St. John's Passion by Francesco Feo, with the Italian baroque orchestra La Divina Armonia, conducted by Lorenzo Ghielmi.

Mr. Schleifer began singing as a boy-soloist in the synagogue of the Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem, where his father, Eliyahu Schleifer, served as Cantor. He graduated the High School of the Jerusalem Academy of Music (piano with Yitzhak Kosov and composition with Irena Svetova). He studied voice with Miriam Meltzer and Zvi Semel at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where he won the first prize in the Baroque-music performance.

He has been a recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation scholarships for a number of years. Later on, Doron continued his master studies in Basel, at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where he studies with Evelyn Tubb, Anthony Rooley, Gerd Türk and Andreas Scholl.

Doron sang at the Jerusalem Boys Choir under the direction of Jonathan Lesser and later in the Domino Vocal Ensemble. In Israel he sang with the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra, and Barrocade Collective, and the international ensemble Qui Regna Amore. In addition to his activity as singer, Doron is the conductor and musical director of the Basel Synagogue Choir. Founded more than 80 years ago, it is the only choir in Europe to have existed without interruption over the Second World War and the holocaust, preserving its traditions till the present day.

Corina Marti has extensively performed, recorded and taught Late Medieval and Early Renaissance repertoires throughout Europe, the Middle East and the USA. In 2003, she was invited to join the faculty of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis as a tutor for early flutes and keyboard instruments. Her performances on these instruments and research into their history and construction have contributed to their revival among performers.

She also enjoys later repertoires, appearing as soloist and together with chamber music formations and orchestras (including Jordi Savall's Hesperion XXI and La Capella Reial de Cataluña) performing Renaissance, Baroque and contemporary repertoire.

With ensemble La Morra, of which she is co-director, Corina Marti has recorded several enthusiastically received CDs of fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century music (including the complete works of Johannes Ciconia, awarded Diapason d'Or, and Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik). Her ongoing interest in the earliest instrumental music has resulted in a CD release devoted to German repertoire of the late fifteenth- / early sixteenth-century (Von edler Art, Ramée, 2008, together lutenist with Michal Gondko) and in her first solo CD: I dilettosi fiori, 14th century music for clavisimbalum and recorders.

Her discography of post-1500 music includes recordings devoted to Early Baroque instrumental music from Lombardy, music by the Italian-Jewish composer Salomone Rossi (1570-c1630), flute sonatas by Johann Sebastian Bach and – most recently – flute concertos by Francesco Mancini.

Salon/Sanctuary Concerts wishes to thank the Italian Cultural Institute of New York for assistance with promotion of the February 28th and March 1st events.