Lagrime mie: Songs of Lamentation, Disdain, and Renewal

Monday, June 17 • 7:30 pm
McColl Center
721 N. Tryon St., Charlotte

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John DOWLAND | In darkness let me dwell
Barbara STROZZI | Lagrime mie
John DOWLAND | Lachrimae
Nicholas LANIER | Hero's complaint to Leander
John DOWLAND | Melancholy Gaillard
John DOWLAND | Come, heavy sleep
Luigi ROSSI | Lamento di Zaida moro
Alessandro PICCININI | Toccata VI
Claudio MONTEVERDI | Voglio di vita uscir

Margaret Carpenter Haigh, soprano
William Simms, theorbo

Premium Reserved Seating: $50
General Admission: $30

Lagrime mie: Songs of Lamentation, Disdain, and Renewal explores the overlapping musical worlds of Elizabethan lute song and Italian recitative lament—featuring works by Dowland, Lanier, Rossi, and Monteverdi. Lanier’s expressive and expansive scena Hero’s Lament to Leander breaks the strictures of small form lute songs, channeling its heroine’s complex emotional shifting sands through the recitative style typical of the compositional and rhetorical frames imposed by contemporary Italian composers and pairs exquisitely with Rossi’s Lament di Zaida moro. The recitative lament as a genre is flanked by more restrictive, yet equally soul-baring musical forms, including Claudio Monteverdi’s Voglio di vita uscir, a curiously upbeat lament set over the ciaccona ground base, offering a shining beam of possibility and light in an otherwise dark world.

Praised as “fiery, wild, and dangerous” (Classical Voice North Carolina) with “a talent for character portrayal” (Chicago Classical Review), soprano and Bach Akademie Charlotte Artistic Leader Margaret Carpenter Haigh captivates audiences with her “flawless intonation” and “perfect vocalism” (CVNC). William Simms is an active performer of early music. Equally adept on lute, theorbo and baroque guitar, he regularly performs with Apollo’s Fire, The Washington Bach Consort, Tempesta di Mare, Modern Musick, Ensemble Vermillian, Heartland Baroque and Three Notch’d Road.