LECTURE-RECITAL PROGRAMS

The Mignarda lute song duo's engaging lecture-recitals illuminate the link between renaissance art, music, poetry, and literature. Students at all levels of art history, English renaissance literature, historical music survey courses, and interdisciplinary seminars are universally fascinated to see and hear our contextual examples presented in a format tailored to meet your needs.

This is a representative sampling of some of our more popular lectures, but is by no means comprehensive. Contact us and see what we can create together to help you bring history to life for your students.

Art & Music in the Stuart Age: Six Portraits

Appreciation for fine art is heightened by an understanding of the cultural context in which the art was created. This presentation features five figures who were the subject of portraits by prominent artists circa 1620-1640: Constantijn Huygens, Lady Mary Killigrew, John Donne, Jacques Gaultier, and Nicholas Lanier. We offer a bit of background on these five figures and discuss their inter-relationships which were, not surprisingly, centered around music.

Music & poetry 1500-1690

This program presents a survey of musical settings of poetry known to have a separate non-musical provenance in published sources. Poets represented include Francesco Petrarch, Clement Marot, Shakespeare, Samuel Daniel, John Donne, and Robert Herrick.

Music in the plays of Shakespeare

Music was integral to Shakespeare's plays and is featured more prominently than is apparent to the reader. This program identifies many of the musical references in selected plays and presents several songs and ballad tunes with a contextual discussion.

Shakespeare's sonnets

Shakespeare's sonnets are treated as the culmination of a refined art that was, like so much Elizabethan culture, imported from Italy. The form of the sonnet is traced with Italian examples as well as English antecedents of Shakespeake's sonnets. The program elucidates modes of performance of the sonnet with a background discussion touching on Rhetoric and Oratory. The program presents examples of musical accompaniment to the recitation of selected Shakespeare sonnets using sixteenth century music that fits with the metrical structure of the poems.

Song settings of poetry by Sir Philip Sidney

Even in his own time, Sidney was recognized as the ideal Elizabethan courtier and several musical settings survive from his remarkable literary output. This program presents songs set by John Dowland and Thomas Morley as well as anonymous song settings and lute solos that can be traced to Sidney and his circle.

The Tudors: Music from the Tudor Courts

History springs vibrantly to life in this presentation designed to link the musical, social, religious, and political developments of the turbulent 118-year Tudor reign. Using the framework of the Tudor dynasty - 1485 through 1603 - we present a broad range of musical styles reflecting the varied influences of this musically gifted clan, all of whom employed legions of important musicians, French, Flemish, Spanish and Italian.



Lecture-recital programs are presented in an engaging lecture demonstration format and are performed in an historically informed manner with voice and lute. Student participation is typically a part of every presentation with ample discussion and materials for visual reinforcement. The programs may be tailored to a fifty-minute classroom presentation or in an expanded ninety minute lecture concert presentation.

For further details and information on booking, fees and availability, please contact us.