Sunday, March 11, 2018

Ars Minerva to Visit Italian Cultural Institute

courtesy of the Italian Cultural Institute

The next music event to be hosted by the Italian Cultural Institute (Istituto Italiano de Cultura, IIC) will involve a visit from Ars Minerva. Those who have been following this site may recall that this year’s concert season began with a full-length fully-staged production by Ars Minerva of the seventeenth-century opera La Circe, composed by Pietro Andrea Ziani with a libretto by Cristoforo Ivanovich. Based in San Francisco and created by Artistic Director and mezzo Céline Ricci, Ars Minerva has been pursuing its mission of bringing forgotten music back to life since its formation in 2013.

At the end of this month, Ricci will come to IIC to present her latest project, Women of the Mediterranean Baroque Arias. Ricci has prepared a selection of arias by Claudio Monteverdi, Francesco Cavalli, Carlo Pallavicino, George Frideric Handel, Pietro Andrea Zani, and Giovanni Porta to survey the different ways in which those composers developed female characters through the arias they composed. She will be joined by two other vocalists, soprano Aurélie Veruni and mezzo Kindra Scharich (both of whom had been in the cast of La Circe). Accompaniment will be provided by Derek Tam at the harpsichord.

This concert will begin at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 28, and will probably last for about two hours. IIC is located in the Civic Center at 601 Van Ness Avenue, Suite F. Admission is free, but registration is required to assure having a place. IIC has created a registration page specific for this event. Anyone who registers may also add the names of a maximum of two additional guests. Those wishing further information may call IIC at 415-788-7142.

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