Members of the Case Western Reserve University graduate music ensemble Ciaramella-which recently traveled to Spoleto, Italy, to premiere programs of sacred and secular music from the Italian repertoire found in Manuscript Panciatichi 27, a vast collection of music from the 15th century-will perform March 7 at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Ciaramella is comprised of young professional performers, many who are combining doctoral studies in early music performance at Case with active performance schedules. The group is dedicated to performing early Renaissance repertoire.

Clevelanders will have the opportunity to hear Ciaramella when the group joins six actors to stage Leone de'Sommi's Purim play, "A Comedy of Betrothal" in March at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Anna Levenstein, a vocalist with Ciaramella and a musical arts doctorate student in Case's department of music, has set Jewish lyrical poetry from Northern Italy to Italian music for the play as part of her doctoral work and describes "A Comedy of Betrothal" as a blending of Talmudic wisdom, Kaballah and comeddia dell'arte, with a cast of lovers, clowns and musicians.

Ciaramella, which takes its name from the Italian word for shawm, an early wind instrument, was founded in 1995 by Adam and Rotem Gilbert, who continue as performing members on both recorder and double reed instruments.

Its members also include Julie Andrijeski (vielle), Doug Milliken (recorder, bagpipes, shawms and dulcian) and Debra Nagy (recorder and double reed).

The group was a finalist last summer in the Early Music America-Naxos competition and won a recording contract with Naxos.

In June 2004, the group will make its first recording-although individual members of the group already can be heard on numerous classical music labels.

The group's instrumentalists also were finalists in the International Young Artist's Presentation-Historical Wind Competition with their program of music for the town wind band of the 16th century in Antwerp, Belgium, last August.

To learn more about the group or performances, call Levenstein at 216-229-9737.

Return to the online edition of the 1-29-04 Campus News.