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Music of the Spanish Renaissance
Complementing the exhibition Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800, Early Music Missouri presents a concert of early-16th-century Iberian song and dances. Soprano Victoria Botero will perform villancicos and romances from Spanish manuscript collections and vihuela books collected or published in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Victoria will be joined by Rachel Siegel playing recorder and Jeffrey Noonan playing vihuela and Renaissance guitar.
Victoria Botero
About the musicians
Soprano Victoria Botero enjoys an exciting and entrepreneurial career encompassing repertoire from medieval to New Music, from opera, to concert, to traditional music from around the world. After performing in more than 18 languages, Victoria feels most at home communicating with an audience through the direct language of emotion. As a concert soloist, she has performed with the Kansas City Symphony, St. Joseph Symphony, Kansas City Baroque Consortium, William Baker Festival Singers, and Sunflower Baroque Consort; at a world premiere for TEDxKC, and had a residency at L’Istituto di Musica Antica in Milan exploring the music of Barbara Strozzi. A proud Colombian American who embraces her multiethnic heritage, Victoria’s passion for inclusive performance led her to create The Cecilia Series, critically acclaimed concerts that explore global music through the lens of gender, race, and identity.
Rachel Siegel is a recorder player and clarinetist based in St. Louis. Her playing has been praised as “beautifully melodic” (Philadelphia Inquirer) and “compelling” (Maryland Theater Guide). From 2013 to 2017, she served as clarinetist in the “President’s Own” United States Marine Band in Washington, DC. Beginning in 2018, she played recorder with several orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra on its Harry Potter in Concert series.
Jeffrey Noonan (vihuela and Renaissance guitar) is the founder and director of Early Music Missouri. Based in St. Louis, he has performed regionally with various ensembles including Shakespear’s Bande, Early Music St. Louis, Bourbon Baroque (Louisville), Madison Early Music Festival (Wisconsin), Ars Antigua (Chicago), and Musik Ekklesia (Indianapolis.) A scholar of the early guitar, Jeff has produced two books and articles for Grove on the subject as well as an edition of 18th-century violin sonatas by Giovanni Bononcini. He has received funding and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Newberry Library. In 2016, the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission awarded him an Artist Fellowship in recognition of his work as a performer, teacher, and scholar.
Generous support provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program.
