{"id":149109,"date":"2026-03-01T17:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T17:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/149109\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T17:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T17:07:07","slug":"blue-heron-brings-ferrara-to-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/149109\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Heron Brings Ferrara to New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Blue Heron in New York<\/p>\n

In Praise of Laura Peperara \u2013 Music for the Concerto delle dame \u2022 Ferrara, 1580s<\/p>\n

St. Ignatius of Antioch<\/p>\n

Published in Sequenza 21\u00a0<\/p>\n

By Christian Carey<\/p>\n

February 25, 2026<\/p>\n

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NEW YORK \u2013 Blue Heron always presents thematic programs, and they excel at giving the audience a sense of the time and place in which the music they perform resides. This past week in their program at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, they featured the music performed in the court of Ferrara in the 1580s, specifically by the Concerto delle dame. These were a trio of female performers who captivated listeners with their prowess in singing and instrumental performance. One, Laura Peperara, was an exceedingly talented vocalist and harpist. Such was her popularity that a number of composers wrote pieces either for the Concerto or in Laura\u2019s honor. Indeed, two collections, Il lauro secco and Il lauro verde, were published in the early 1580s, containing pieces by a wide range of composers, including Luca Marenzio, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Giaches de Vert, and Allessandro Striggio, some of the most distinguished madrigalists of their day. That Laura\u2019s fame had spread far and wide is made clear by the varied geographies of the composers who participated in the publications: Ferrara, yes, but also Mantua and Rome. The Concerto may have performed in select, relatively private, settings, but word of them spread far and wide.<\/p>\n

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The original group was a trio of women, Laura best known but all three abundantly talented. This was also true of the four women who took on the roles of the Concerto at Blue Heron\u2019s concert: soprano Sonja DuToit Tengblad , mezzo-sopranos Sophie Michaux and Laura Pudwell, and harpist Amanda Beranek. They were joined by male singers: tenors James Reese, Jason McStoots, and Sumner Thompson, and basses Paul Guttry and Steven Hrycelak. The harpsichordist Alessandro Quarta both played and did dramatic readings, and Blue Heron director Scott Metcalfe appeared to give a brief talk and perform recitations as well. Quarta stood in for Luzzaschi, who directed the Concerto from the keyboard, also serving as their music coach.<\/p>\n

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DuToit Tengblad\u2019s performance of de Wert\u2019s Cara la vita mia, in which she was accompanied by Beranek, was impressive, with florid runs and incisive embellishments showing off much vocal dexterity. Beranek\u2019s solo turns included similarly nimble ornaments,\u00a0 and the instrument\u2019s purity of intonation was beautiful. Quarta\u2019s playing was subtle, as was his direction, but it provided a framework that buoyed the singers and synced well with the harp. Until the last madrigal, Striggio\u2019s All-apparir della leggiadra figlia, the full cohort didn\u2019t perform together, but even fractals thereof made a full, cultivated sound that few other renaissance specialists can match. Short of a time machine, this was about the best way to hear the storied Concerto and the music it inspired.<\/p>\n

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Blue Heron stepped outside of their usual wheelhouse on their latest CD release. Songs from Nightingales, performing the music of contemporary composer Mehmet Ali Sanl\u0131kol. Originally from Turkey and of Cypriot descent, Sanl\u0131kol now teaches at New England Conservatory. His group D\u00dcNYA appears in a recording that includes The Triumph, which was written for Blue Heron\u2019s 25th anniversary. A number of Middle Eastern wind and percussion instruments are deployed, with cymbals and bass drums underscoring the intense chanted melodies that crescendo to a fervent fortissimo.<\/p>\n

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Sanl\u0131kol uses an extended harmonic palette, with added-note chords and modal inflections creating a sumptuous atmosphere, particularly in Devran, Nos. 1 and 2, a cappella pieces that close the CD. His employment of counterpoint bridges that gap between new classical and Blue Heron\u2019s bailiwick, and they flourish in this collaboration.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blue Heron in New York In Praise of Laura Peperara \u2013 Music for the Concerto delle dame \u2022…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[62479,62480,62481,17128,62482,62483,9,11,10,62484],"class_list":["post-149109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-cbcarey","tag-sequenza21","tag-blue-heron","tag-concert-review","tag-early-music","tag-ferrara","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-st-ignatius-of-antioch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}