Cipriano de Rore: I madrigali a cinque voci
with Italian and English recitations by Viola Ardeni, lecturer in the Department of French and Italian at UC Davis.

Blue Heron brings to Davis mid-sixteenth-century Italian madrigals for five voices by the Flemish composer Cipriano de Rore. Cipriano set lyric poems by Petrarch and others that record the story of a love affair. The poems will be recited in both Italian and English to make audible the ways in which the music captures the wide range of emotions. Blue Heron’s world premiere recording (in 2019) of De Rore’s 1542 madrigal set was made possible in part by the research of Jessie Ann Owens, UC Davis Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus and former dean of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies. The collaborative project was awarded the American Musicological Society’s Noah Greenberg Award.

Scott Metcalfe, Artistic Director
Kim Leeds, mezzo-soprano
Laura Pudwell, alto
Jason McStoots, tenor
Sumner Thompson, tenor
Paul Guttry, bass