2022-2023: A Year in Review from Liza Malamut
I can’t believe our 36th season is over! It seems like only yesterday that I arrived in Chicago, even though the calendar tells me more than a year has gone by! During this time, The Newberry Consort presented four major programs: Madama Europa in the Gonzaga Court, featuring lush Italian music from sixteenth-century Mantua; an encore of A Mexican Christmas, guest directed by Artistic Director Emerita Ellen Hargis; Oracles, Prophets, and Dreams, with music by Orlande de Lassus and other composers; and Singen und Sagen: Music for Hope in a Time of War, a spectacular and heartfelt collaboration with the amazing vocalists of Bella Voce.
Malamut closes first Newberry Consort season with a Praetorius epic
“Liza Malamut is taking the Newberry Consort places in her first year as artistic director. Literally and figuratively.
Saturday night’s performance at St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church in the Gold Coast saw another new venue this season for Chicago’s most enduring early music ensemble. But the intelligence, ambition, and polish Malamut has brought to the organization are even more impressive and welcome than the changes of scenery. ”
Newberry Consort hits its stride under Malamut with de Lassus
“Saturday night’s concert at the University of Chicago’s Bond Chapel showed that not a stitch had been dropped in the transition and the reins have been handed off successfully to new artistic director Liza Malamut, who curated a program that embodied the Consort’s tradition of probing scholarship and refined performance.
“Oracles, Prophets, and Dreams,” as the evening was billed, centered on the Sibylline Prophecies of Orlando de Lassus, and offered a rare opportunity to hear this complete work in live performance. While the score’s origin and inspiration are a matter of scholarly dispute, its musical interest is unambiguous. ”
Newberry Consort Gives an Introduction to Renaissance Singer Madama Europa
“The Newberry Consort opened its 2022–23 Hyde Park season Saturday night, Oct. 29 with a glorious concert at Congregation Rodfei Zedek, 5200 S. Hyde Park Blvd., celebrating the life of Madama Europa, a singer at the Gonzaga Court. Known also as Madama Europa di Rossi, she was the sister of composer Salamone Rossi (ca. 1570–1630) and the first woman to be considered a great Jewish opera star. ”
Newberry Consort Enters a New Era..
“In its first concert with Liza Malamut at the helm, the Newberry Consort showed that it remains in good hands.
Taking over for Ellen Hargis and David Douglass, who have led the Newberry Consort since 2009, Malamut is a trombonist, researcher, and educator whose research specialty is in Jewish music in early modern Italy. Aptly, this first program in her first season as artistic director centers on the life of Jewish court singer Madama Europa di Rossi.”
NEWBERRY CONSORT NAMED CCPA ENSEMBLE-IN-RESIDENCE
“Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts (CCPA) is pleased to announce its partnership with The Newberry Consort as an Ensemble-in-Residence. This partnership will bring The Newberry Consort into CCPA on a regular basis, sharing their rehearsals and performances with students to provide experienced professional members’ presence throughout their residences….”