Musica Secreta & Celestial Sirens
Biography Musica Secreta & Celestial Sirens
Musica Secreta
For over twenty-five years, Musica Secreta has been at the forefront of the discovery and interpretation of music for and by early modern women. We bring together internationally-acclaimed musicians and ground-breaking research to perform this fascinating and continually emerging repertoire. Our programmes illustrate the many faces of women musicians in the 16th and 17th centuries: courtiers, courtesans, actresses and cloistered nuns. There is always an element of story-telling and surprise in our performances, for the women who first made our music had lives as compelling as the music itself.
Celestial Sirens
Celestial Sirens is a select non-professional choir of female singers based in Southern England. The group was formed in 2003 by Deborah Roberts, and has maintained a strong reputation as the country’s foremost ensemble committed to the performance of choral works in the style of early modern convents.
Deborah Roberts
Deborah Roberts has been at the forefront of British early music performance for over three decades, as a soprano in over a thousand concerts with the Tallis Scholars and, for the last fifteen years, as a co-director of the Brighton Early Music Festival. She is also a distinguished teacher and coach, and now runs her own summer workshops, Triora Musica.
Laurie Stras
Laurie Stras is a Professor of Music at the University of Southampton, where she teaches courses on both sixteenth-century polyphony and twentieth-century girl groups; her book on the musical women of sixteenth-century Ferrara is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.
