MEDIA CONTACT: Judy Moore at (847) 491-4819 or at jkm229@northwestern.edu

January 22, 2002

Northwestern Schedules Early Music Events

EVANSTON, Ill. --- The Northwestern University School of Music will celebrate Western music and dance of the 17th and 18th centuries during the winter quarter. A summary of upcoming early music events is listed below.

• Soprano Patrice Michaels will perform music that Mozart, Salieri, Martín y Soler, and Cimarosa composed for singers Catarina Cavalieri, Luisa Laschi-Mombelli, Adriana Ferrarese del Bene, Nancy Storace and Louis Villeneuve during the "Divas of Mozart’s Day" concert at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 10. In addition to singing, Michaels will profile these five divas. She will be joined on stage by baritone Peter Van De Graaff and the period-instrument Classical Arts Orchestra conducted by music faculty member Stephen Alltop. The concert will be held at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 1977 S. Campus Drive, Arts Circle, Evanston campus. Ticket prices are $12 for the general public; $8.50 for senior citizens and Northwestern faculty and staff; and $5.50 for full-time students.

The annual Evelyn Dunbar Memorial Early Music Festival (Feb. 21 to 24) includes choreographed opera performances and a baroque dance workshop that is part of a four-day conference that will be held at various Chicago and Evanston locations. This year’s festival is co-sponsored by Northwestern University Schools of Music and Speech, Program in the Study of Imagination and the Newberry Library’s Center for Renaissance Studies, with support from the Dunbar-Davee Family. The festival’s ancillary events, listed below, are open to the public.

• Four performances of Henry Purcell’s only full-length opera, "Dido and Aeneas," and scenes from "The Fairy Queen," will be performed during the Winter Opera: "Music, Myth, and Magic" at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, through Saturday, Feb. 23, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, at Northwestern University’s Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson St., Evanston campus. Adapted from the fourth book of Virgil’s "Aeneid," the tragic "Dido and Aeneas," testifies to the irreversibility of fate and explores a full range of emotions through Purcell’s best-loved music. It will be performed in the original English by two separate casts. "The Fairy Queen" sets Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" to a vivid score. The production will feature The Dunbar Early Music Consort, a period instrument orchestra conducted by Mary Springfels; period-style choreography by Thomas Baird and Paige Whitley-Bauguess; and stage direction by Michael La Tour.

The Winter Opera will be presented by the Music Theatre Program, a collaboration of Northwestern’s Schools of Music and Speech. Opera tickets are $22 for the general public; $18 for senior citizens and Northwestern faculty and staff members; and $10 for full-time students. For opera tickets, contact the Pick-Staiger Concert Hall ticket office at (847) 467-4000 or go to the Pick-Staiger Web site at www.northwestern.edu/pick-staiger.

• The Northwestern University School of Music and the Evelyn Dunbar Early Music Festival will present a free, four-day conference titled, "Music, Myth, and Magic in the Late Medieval and Early Modern World," in collaboration with the Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies, 60 W. Walton St., Chicago. Session I, from 3 to 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, will focus on the myths of female metamorphosis. Gary Tomlinson, Annenberg Professor in the Humanities and chair of the department of music, University of Pennsylvania, will deliver a keynote lecture at 6 p.m. The Session II topic, from 9 to 11 a.m. Friday, Feb. 22, will be "Performing Mythologies." Session III, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., will focus on "Visualization and Magic." The topic of Session IV, from 2:30 to 5 p.m., is "Ritual Practice and Magic."

On Saturday, Feb. 23, the daylong symposium will be held at Northwestern University’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 1967 S. Campus Drive, Arts Circle, Evanston campus. The topic scheduled for Session V, from 10 a.m. to noon, is "Narrative and Magic." From 1:30 to 3 p.m., the Session VI topic is "Theaters of Magic;" and at 4 p.m. Session VII will be a panel discussion on Purcell’s opera "Dido and Aeneas."

Prior to the final matinee opera performance, a Baroque Dance Workshop conducted by choreographers Thomas Baird and Paige Whitley-Bauguess, will be held from 10 a.m. to noon, Sunday, Feb. 24, at the Northwestern University Theater and Interpretation Center’s Marjorie Ward Marshall Dance Center Ballroom, 1979 S. Campus Drive, Evanston campus. Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Admission is free. For information on the Dance Workshop, or to be placed on the symposium mailing list, contact Judith Schwartz at j-schwartz@northwestern.edu, or call (847) 491-5431.

For further information on the free symposium, contact the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library via e-mail at renaissance@newberry.org or go to the Newberry Library’s Web site at www.newberry.org or Northwestern’s Program in the Study of the Imagination Web site at www.psi.northwestern.edu.

The annual Evelyn Dunbar Memorial Early Music Festivals have been made possible through the generous support of Northwestern alumni Ruth Dunbar Davee and her late husband, Ken M. Davee, in memory of Ruth’s sister, Evelyn Dunbar, who was an enthusiastic participant in early music ensembles at the University.