by Daniel Hathaway

Chicago’s Newberry Consort will mark the arrival of the new 17th-century-style gallery organ at the Church of the Covenant in Cleveland’s University Circle with a concert entitled “Celestial Sirens” on Wednesday, March 20 at 7:30 pm. “It all came about with a handshake in the parking lot”, Ellen Hargis said in a phone conversation from her home in Chicago. Hargis is also on the faculty at Case, whose music department shares parking with the church. “One day I ran into Jonathan Moyer who told me about the new organ and I said ‘you need my Celestial Sirens concert.’”

That program, which features choral and instrumental music from 17^th century Italian and Mexican convents, was itself the result of a chance encounter. Hargis was already thinking of constructing an Italian program drawing on the vast collections of unpublished music in convent libraries — partly suggested by Craig Monson’s book, Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Magic, Art, and Arson in the Convents of Italy. [Read more…]