CANCELLED: The World of Salamone Rossi

Temple Beth Am, 2632 NE 80th St, Seattle, WA 98115

This event has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

SHAK's Early Music Youth Academy is off to San Francisco in June, where this program will be presented by Early Music America's Young Performers Festival. Here's the last chance to see it in Seattle!

Gorgeous music of Salamone Rossi comes to life in the context of his vibrant yet troubling times. This prolific and inventive early-17th-century Italian musician composed during one of the most exciting transitions in music history, and a chronological sampling of Rossi's works reveals how he helped transform the poignant symmetries of the Renaissance into the expressive virtuosity of the early Baroque on voices and instruments. The Early Music Youth Academy, an ensemble of skilled teen players on violas da gamba, violin, lute, and harp, is joined by the nationally in-demand theorbo player John Lenti and directed by Shulamit Kleinerman from the Renaissance violin. Guest teen singers in period costume bring to life Rossi’s courtly Italian madrigaletti and his innovative sacred music in Hebrew, along with readings from members of the composer's circle.

By day Rossi commuted to work in the household of Mantua's Gonzaga dukes, composing music for their court ceremonies and performing in their wedding festivities. But at night, he and all of the city's Jewish population were required by law to retreat behind the walls of the Jewish ghetto -- an image that can't help but bring newly painful relevance today. The Early Music Youth Academy is a program of Seattle Historical Arts for Kids, which is proud to help enrich our understanding of the music our students love by facing its complex history and celebrating its cultural diversity.