G's D's concert with Dava Sobel

Galileo's Daughters

An ensemble based in New York City, Galileo's Daughters is the creation of three individual musicians whose multi-faceted experience in the worlds of early music, opera, jazz, drama, and musical scholarship combine to bring freshness and immediacy to their performances. Since their debut concert in September of 2001, Galileo's Daughters has performed throughout the United States, including the College of Charleston, the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, the Mobile, Alabama Chamber Music Society, the University of Notre Dame, the Boston Early Music Festival and in New York City.

Inspired by Dava Sobel's book Galileo's Daughter, Sarah Pillow (soprano), Mary Anne Ballard (viola da gamba), and Jennifer Peterson (harpsichord) bring alive through music and readings the era of Suor Maria Celeste whose letters to her famous father make vivid the spiritual and daily life of a 17th-century woman.

For bookings or further information please contact: daughters@buckyballmusic.com or call 212-333-5812/1-800-823-0635

Bios:

Sarah Pillow

Sarah Pillow has built a unique career by drawing on her equal expertise in jazz and classical repertoire. She began her professional singing career as a jazz vocalist and church musician, became a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory and started exploring early music upon her arrival in New York City. Her jazz festival appearances include the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, where she received an award for excellence in performance by Downbeat Magazine. Her work as a classical musician casts a wide net: from Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 (Andrew Parrott and the New York Collegium) to Sweeney Todd (Andrew Litton and the New York Philharmonic) at Avery Fisher Hall. Sarah performs regularly as a solo recitalist in several venues in Europe and the United States, performing repertoire from the 17th century to modern music.
Her work in early Baroque repertoire is extensive. Sarah performed in the 1990's in Ireland, England, and the United States with historical harpist Jan Walters. Their collaboration resulted in three compact discs of the music of Giovanni Felice Sances for ASV Records and BBC Radio 3 in the U.K. In 2001 Sarah formed her own group, "Galileo's Daughters", which has been active in performance of 17th-century secular and sacred music at venues throughout the United States.
Sarah's recordings also attest to her diversity in vocal styles, and she can be heard on such varied recordings as Henry Purcell's opera "Dido and Aeneas" and "An Afterthought", where she has written lyrics to Marc Wagnon's progressive jazz compositions. Her recording entitled "Nuove Musiche" is a jazz-rock album based on 17th-century melodies and texts, and features guitarist John Goodsall and bassist Percy Jones, founders of the progressive jazz-rock band Brand X. "Remixes", her latest recording, consists of two discs and two interpretations (one historical, featuring Galileo's Daughters; the other a modern twist with jazz-rock musicians) of one set of 17th-century songs.

Jennifer Peterson

Born in Anchorage, Alaska, American conductor, pianist and harpsichordist Jennifer Peterson is respected for her informed and spirited interpretations in a wide range of musical styles, including opera, early music, new music, chamber music and art song repertoire. She is the Chorus Master with the Des Moines Metro Opera and has also held positions in both the United States and internationally with numerous opera companies, including the New York City Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Florida Grand Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Opera Memphis, Connecticut Opera, and the International Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv. Ms. Peterson has also collaborated extensively with living composers on new works, and is currently the Music Director for the ‘Composers & the Voice’ Workshop Series with American Opera Projects in Brooklyn, New York.

Mary Anne Ballard

Mary Anne Ballard, viola da gamba, also tours and records with the Baltimore Consort, and is a member of the Oberlin Consort of Viols and of Brio, a medieval/Renaissance quartet based in Charleston, SC, as well as of Fleur de Lys, a baroque ensemble in Indiana. She also performs in recital and has appeared with groups such as the Philadelphia Classical Symphony, the Bethlehem Bach Festival, and the Smithsonian Chamber Players. Formerly active teaching viol and directing early music at the Peabody Conservatory and Princeton University, Ms. Ballard founded the University of Pennsylvania Collegium Musicum, which for fourteen years explored the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, including the Play of Daniel and several other liturgical dramas, which she edited. Ms. Ballard currently teaches at Oberlin’s summer Baroque Performance Institute. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and holds an M.A. in Musicology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Guest artists with Galileo's Daughters:

Dava Sobel, a former New York Times science reporter, is the author of Longitude (Walker 1995 and 2005, Penguin 1996), Galileo's Daughter (Walker 1999, Penguin 2000) and The Planets (Viking, 2005, Penguin 2006). In her thirty years as a science journalist she has written for many magazines, including Audubon, Discover, Life and The New Yorker, served as a contributing editor to Harvard Magazine and Omni, and co-authored five books, including Is Anyone Out There? with astronomer Frank Drake.
Ms. Sobel received the 2001 Individual Public Service Award from the National Science Board “for fostering awareness of science and technology among broad segments of the general public.” Also in 2001, the Boston Museum of Science gave her its prestigious Bradford Washburn Award for her “outstanding contribution toward public understanding of science, appreciation of its fascination, and the vital role it plays in all our lives.” In October 2004, in London, Ms. Sobel received the Harrison Medal from the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, in recognition of her contribution to increasing awareness of the science of horology by the general public, through her writing and lecturing.
She based her book Galileo's Daughter on 124 surviving letters to Galileo from his eldest child.  Ms. Sobel translated the letters from the original Italian and used them to elucidate Galileo?s life work. Galileo's Daughter won the 1999 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for science and technology, a 2000 Christopher Award, and was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in biography. The paperback edition enjoyed five consecutive weeks as the #1 New York Times nonfiction bestseller.  A sequel, Letters to Father, containing the full text of Galileo's daughter's correspondence in both English and Italian, was published by Walker in 2001. An English-only edition, a Penguin “Classic,” followed in 2003.
Ms. Sobel is currently working on a stage play about sixteenth-century astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.

One of the most outstanding lutenists performing today, Ronn McFarlane is largely responsible for bringing the transcendent charm and timeless quality of the lute into the musical mainstream and making it accessible to a larger audience.
Born in West Virginia, Mr. McFarlane spent most of his early years in the neighboring state of Maryland where he developed an interest in music at an early age. As a teenager, he taught himself to play on what he describes as a “cranky sixteen dollar steel string guitar.” He went on to develop his talent, and combined blues and rock music on the electric guitar with studies on the classical guitar. He graduated with honors from Shenandoah Conservatory and continued studies at Peabody Conservatory before turning his full attention and energy to the lute in 1978. The following year, Mr. McFarlane performed his first solo recitals on the lute and became a member of the Baltimore Consort. Since that time, he has toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada and Europe with the Baltimore Consort and as a soloist.
Mr. McFarlane was a faculty member of the Peabody Conservatory from 1984 to 1995, teaching lute and lute-related subjects. In 1996, Mr. McFarlane was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music from Shenandoah Conservatory for his achievements in bringing the lute and its music to the world. He has numerous recordings on the Dorian label including six solo recordings, four lute song recordings with Julianne Baird, soprano and Frederick Urrey, tenor, ten CDs with the Baltimore Consort and three ballad recordings with Custer LaRue and members of the Baltimore Consort.
Recently, Ronn McFarlane has been engaged in composing new music for the lute, building on the tradition of the lutenist/composers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This new music will be the focus of his next solo CD.

Press:

"Soprano Sarah Pillow's renditions were intense, and she simply overwhelmed her audience with a searing account of Monteverdi's Lamento D'Arianna." Early Music America

"Ms. Pillow has a lovely, natural-sounding tone and a versatile gift for interpretation..." The New York Times

"...the concert was a musical tour-de-force. Pillow, who demonstrated a rapt dramatic involvement with the material, sang with clear tonal purity and her diction in Latin and Italian was impeccable. Most importantly, she added the trills, vocal shadings and elaborate ornamentations that give music from the baroque period its subtlety."
Post and Courier Review, Charleston, South Carolina