Sunday, March 29th, 2026 at Vassar College, Skinner Hall-Martell Recital Hall.
Abendmusik presents Vivaldi’s first collection of printed concerti for 1, 2, & 4 violins, Opus 3, l’estro armónico. Published in Amsterdam in 1711, these concerti are believed to have been performed by the all-female orchestra comprised of students at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice. In honor of women everywhere, and in particular Anna Maria della Pietà, an 18th-century violinist, composer, and teacher who was an orphan at the Ospedale, we will feature a selection of concerti from the entire collection with an all-female orchestra (Concerti 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 11). We recently presented Part II (Concerti 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, & 12) to a sold-out audience at the Italian Academy at Columbia University.
Dr. Alison Smith, historian of early modern Italy and professor emeritus at Wagner College will give a short pre-concert talk on Anna Maria and the cultural life of women in Italian convents during the eighteenth century. The concert curator is violinist Vita Wallace.
Approximately a decade ago, Abendmusik’s violinist, Judson Griffin (1951-2020), embarked on a project to record all 12 concerti of Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico. The master recording of the concerti remained in the possession of the recording engineer for several years, but unfortunately, the project was never completed.
A year before Judson passed away, the engineer met an untimely death, and we learned that the masters were lost.
We will be recording all 12 concerti in June at Vassar College and will dedicate the recording to the late baroque violinist, Judson Griffin.
