From Ghetto to Cappella: Interfaith Exchanges in the Music of Baroque Italy

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While the Inquisition raged thoughout Counter-Reformation Italy, the ghetto walls that separated Gentile from Jew were more porous than impenetrable. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate and the visit of Pope Francis to the United States, Ghetto/Cappella explores the cross-fertilization of Jewish and Catholic musical cultures that enriched the music of both Synagogue and Sanctuary in baroque Italy.

Works of Benedetto Marcello, Francesco Durante, Barbara Strozzi, Salomone Rossi, and unaccompanied Hebrew chants attest to a lively conversation, as do selections from the 1759 Hebrew language libretto of Handel's Esther, commissioned by the Jewish community of Amsterdam in the year of the composer's death.

The exquisite 1608 Library of the Fabbri Mansion, brought to the United States exactly a century ago, sets the stage for an ensemble of American, Croatian, Israeli, and Italian soloists, who come together to perform a unique program of unexamined treasures.

Ghetto/Cappella is co-presented by Salon/Sanctuary Concerts and Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò of New York University, with the assistance of L’Istituto Italiano di Cultura di New York. Ghetto/Cappella is an original project of Salon/Sanctuary Concerts, and was originally developed with the generous support of the Archdiocese of Florence, Italy.

Jessica Gould, soprano & Noa Frenkel, contralto
Diego Cantalupi and Diego Leverić, lutes
James Waldo, viola da gamba
Pedro d'Aquino, harpsichord and organ