The fall of the Ancien Régime precipitated by the Napoleonic conquest radically re-shuffled the social order throughout European capitals, and ushered in a new era in inter-religious understanding ushered in by mass democratization.  As the ghetto walls separating Jew from Gentile came tumbling down along with the unquestioning acceptance of clerical and royal authority, an ascendant bourgeois class demanded new compositions for the domestic sphere, with popular references and playable scores accessible to those with neither an aristocratic pedigree nor the funds to purchase a piano.

Songs for soprano and Early Romantic Guitar speak not only of an age of liberation and meritocracy, but of the growing taste for Bel Canto singing, in this charming program featuring repertoire by Carulli, Cimarosa, Doisy, Haydn, Marani, Moretti, and none other than Napoleon’s favorite composer Domenico Maria Puccini, grandfather of the composer of Tosca.

The historic Brotherhood Synagogue on Gramercy Park, housed in an historic structure that was once a stop on the Underground Railroad, sets the stage for this performance of undiscovered repertoire for the domestic sphere, featuring Pascal Valois, French Canadian virtuoso on Early Romantic Guitar, and soprano and Salon/Sanctuary Artistic Director Jessica Gould. Mr. Valois plays an instrument constructed in 1821.