BARBARA STROZZI, La Virtuosissima Cantatrice as she was known, was the greatest virtuoso singer of her age. Born in Venice in 1619, survived all the plagues, died in 1677, she was the illegitimate daughter of one of the Strozzi family associated with the famous Venetian academy of the Incogniti, the mysterious group of intellectuals: she was the star of their regular musical salons in the Strozzi palace and quickly established a reputation as the foremost song composer of the day, the successor to Gesualdo. She never married, supported herself and her children entirely independently, wrote trenchantly about the role of women in the often very daring texts to her songs. She published no fewer than eight collections of madrigals, beginning when she was just 16
Presented by composer Joan Tower for International Women’s Month in March, written and produced with Charlotte Wilson for WMHT
