Visiting scholar and renowned soprano Janet Youngdahl will present a “Celebration of Hildegard” on Friday, Feb. 13 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. in the Carleton College Skinner Memorial Chapel. An early vocal music specialist, Youngdahl will present the music, writings and artwork of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), the visionary abbess and healer whose spiritual compositions are among the most astonishing and unique creations from the dynamic milieu of 12th century Benedictine monasticism.
Hildegard referred to her songs collectively as ‘The Harmonious Music of Celestial Revelations’ (symphoniae harmoniae celestium revelationum), a title meant to indicate their divine inspiration as well as the idea that music is the highest form of human activity, mirroring the ineffable sounds of heavenly spheres, angelic choirs and the individual human soul. Between 1151 and 1158, this visionary ‘Sibyl of the Rhine’ began to collect her musical creations, most of them intended to be sung by the sisters of her convent at the Rupertsberg (on the Rhine at Bingen), were composed as a complement to the traditional Gregorian chant sung during liturgical and other functions. Then, as now, Hildegard was admired for fearlessly exploring the soul’s place in the cosmos and giving it voice through her unique musical vision.
Janet Youngdahl is active as a soprano, academic and choral conductor. She has toured with the medieval music ensemble Sequentia, considered one of the foremost vocal ensembles to revive Hildegard’s music, throughout Europe and North America. She appears with Sequentia as a soloist on seven CDs of early music including the complete works of Hildegard von Bingen and several discs of Aquitanian Polyphony on the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi / BMG label.
In concert, Youngdahl has appeared at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York City, the Proms in London, the Melbourne Festival in Australia, and in concerts in Amsterdam, Paris, Florence, Cologne, Stockholm, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago. Recent recordings include several discs of 17th century Italian music by Kapsberger and Castaldi for Toccata Classsics with lutenists Victor Coelho and David Dolata. Recordings with Vivian Montgomery and Cecilia's Circle for Centaur Records features cantatas by 18th century composer Elizabet Jacquet de la Guerre with baroque violin, viola da Gamba and harpsichord. Appearances in Baroque operas include Dido and Aeneas with Christopher Hogwood, Orfeo with Apollo's Fire Baroque Orchestra, Judith with Ex Machina, Acis and Galeatea with Julianne Baird, Venus and Adonis with the Early English Opera Society of London and The Fairy Queen with both the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic. Appearances in standard works as solo soprano include numerous performances of Handel's Messiah, the Brahms' Requiem, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, the Mozart Requiem, Haydn's Creation and Beethoven's 9th Symphony. 20th Century work includes premiers of many works by William Jordan, and a New York City staged performance and recording on the BIS/Phillips label of Ezequiel Viñao's Arcanum for soprano and chamber orchestra.
Youngdahl’s scholarly efforts include papers and lecture recitals at the annual meetings of the American Musicological Society, the Society for Seventeenth Century Music, the International Medieval Society in Leeds, the Canadian University Musicological Society, the Lyrica Society, the Kalamazoo International Congress on Medieval Studies, the Modern Languages Association and the Gregorian Institute of Canada. She has organized residencies and workshops on early music at numerous institutions including Cincinnati Conservatory, Michigan State University, Brandeis University, Dickinson College, and the Pennsylvania State University System.
Youngdahl holds a Doctorate of Music from Case Western Reserve University, a Master's degree from the University of Michigan, and a B. Mus. from the College of Wooster. She is an Associate Professor in the department of music at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada.
This event is sponsored by Arts at Carleton. For more information, including disability accommodations, call (507) 222-4389. The Skinner Memorial Chapel is located on First Street between College and Winona Streets in Northfield.
