L’Isola | Roma: Il Palazzo

Join us for the first Music Committee concert of the 2024-2025 season, featuring the Cambridge-based musical group, L’Isola.

Secular music from 16th C Rome. Composers including de Macque, Locatelli, Zoilo, Ferrabosco, Marenzio, Anerio. L’Isola always aim to sing directly from original 16th Century partbooks. Much of this repertoire is likely never to have been heard on the concert platform in the UK, prior to this performance.

The Roman Compagnia were an informal association (effectively an Italian academy) in the 1580s which included many of the finest musicians present in Rome during this period. Italian academies allowed artistic patrons and enthusiasts the opportunity to hear, discuss or analyse music in the finest houses and palaces; an environment not too dissimilar from our collegiate one nowadays. The Compagnia are specifically referenced in a 1589 print (Le Gioie) but the academic consensus is that the group existed in a more informal manner from the 1570s onwards. This concert will include brief talks about the ensemble, their music, and the cultural conditions of its time and place.