Ceruleo

Formed in 2014, Ceruleo create dramatic programmes using spoken text alongside music for two sopranos and continuo. Every member of the group performs as a soloist, and they use all available combinations of instruments and voices to create innovative and captivating performances. They specialise in the music of Restoration England and Seventeenth Century Italy.

Today they perform a beautiful programme entitled Voices of Longing, drawing from the rich oeuvre of the 17th century composer Barbara Strozzi, who made her name in the semi-private spaces of the ‘accademici’ of Venice – meetings of the intelligentsia to discuss and perform music, poetry and art.

Her distinctive style is characterised by virtuosic vocal lines, sophisticated interplay between voice(s) and basso continuo accompaniment, and a dramatic approach to text setting that went above and beyond that of her influ ences Claudio Monteverdi and Francesco Cavalli. This is passionate music, with the titular longing referring to desires for love, both in general and in the specific form of another person, but also to a longing for an answer to life’s questions.