Sonnambula & Elizabeth Weinfield
Biographie Sonnambula & Elizabeth Weinfield
Sonnambula
Praised as “remarkable” and “superb” by Alex Ross in the New Yorker, Sonnambula is a historically informed ensemble that brings to light unknown music for early instruments with the lush sound of the viol at the core. Sonnambula holds the prestigious position of inaugural ensemble-in-residence at The Frick Collection in New York, where they use their deep understanding of the technique and history of old music to deconstruct and reimagine its artistic possibilities in the present. The ensemble also recently held the position of ensemble in residence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the group curated a site-specific series at The Cloisters, praised by Alex Ross in The New Yorker as “remarkable.” Performances and collaborators have included Anonymous 4, Bard Graduate Center, The Boston Early Music Festival, Early Music Texas, The Madison Early Music Festival, PERFORMA, Princeton University, Teju Cole, and many others. The ensemble has a strong commitment to working with museums and in this capacity has worked closely with The Hispanic Society of America in New York to curate a season of music by women with connections to the Iberian Diaspora as well as American premieres of 18th-century Cuban sacred music and Spanish zarzuela. Sonnambula has also been a featured guest at The National Gallery of Art (DC), The Detroit Museum of Arts, The Frick Collection, and other notable American museums. Their award-winning recording of the complete works of 17th-century composer Leonora Duarte was released on Centaur Records and won the American Musicological Society’s Jewish Studies Prize in 2019.
Elizabeth Weinfield
is a viol player, the artistic director of Sonnambula, and a musicologist who teaches in the music history department at The Juilliard School. As an independent performance curator, she uses her deep understanding of the technique and history of old music to deconstruct and reimagine its artistic possibilities in the present, including the recent site-specific series at The Met Cloisters, reviewed by Alex Ross in the New Yorker as "remarkable." As the guest curator of the Hispanic Society of America’s 2017–2018 concert season, “Hispanic Women Composers,” she designed concerts of work by unknown female composers with ties to the Spanish diaspora including many New York premieres. Recipient of the Oxford University Press OBO award in music, she also designs SpectrumHP, a historical performance solo series at NYC’s contemporary music space, Spectrum, concerts of which often include new commissions for old instruments. Current and recent projects with Sonnambula include the first complete recording of Leonora Duarte (1610–1678), a Portuguese converso living in Antwerp, a collaboration with the New York Times photography critic Teju Cole; premières of 18th-century works from Cuba at The Hispanic Society of America in New York; and the commission and recording of new works for viol consort by Princeton University composers. Notable collaborations include Anonymous 4, Bacheler Consort, Brothers Balliett, Davóne Tines, Lionhart, ModernMedieval, New York Consort of Viols, Parthenia, PERFORMA, Trio Coprario, The Sebastians, choreographer Christopher Williams, and director R.B. Schlather. Weinfield has appeared as viola da gamba soloist with the American Baroque Orchestra and the Yale Schola Cantorum under Masaaki Suzuki.
Weinfield holds a PhD in historical musicology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (2019), where she wrote a dissertation on Leonora Duarte, the first of its kind. A dedicated educator, she joined the faculty of music history at Juilliard in 2019 and previously taught music at The City College of New York, Yeshiva University, and Fordham University, and art history at Oxbridge Academic Programs (Paris/Barnard). She holds a Master’s degree in music from Oxford University where she studied baroque viola with Judy Tarling and members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and viols with the British viol consort Phantasm. Weinfield was the digital project leader for the redesign of the Musical Instruments galleries at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which recently reopened in March 2018; she has curated a baroque plucked strings exhibition for the Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments and was the managing editor of The Met's digital project, The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. As a writer and critic, she has published on old instruments and historical performance in The Galpin Society Journal, The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Huffington Post, Fortnight Journal, and others. She lives in New York with her husband, Sonnambula violinist Jude Ziliak, and their young son.
