artist Dionysos Now! © Luk Monsaerts
artist Marini Consort © Tim Gander

Venice played an important role in the arts, and especially music, until the end of the Republic. It owed its first heyday in the early 16th century to a foreigner, the Flemish Adrian Willaert. As choir master of St Mark’s Basilica, he brought the polyphonic style to Italy and combined it with the Italian tradition of placing the choirs in separate locations in the church. He was a representative of the stile antico, which was perfected by his successors Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi in the form of the stile moderno. The result was the polychoral music of the Venetian school. This was closely linked to the period’s changed view of the world and the expansion of space and thus also of the realm of artistic expression. In this concert the impact on music is impressively demonstrated by the Christmas music interpreted by local and international ensembles: the Marini Consort Innsbruck, the Dionysos Now! vocal ensemble, and the soprano Maria Ladurner under the direction of Anne Marie Dragosits.

Maria Ladurner – soprano
Marini Consort Innsbruck
Dionysos Now! 
Conductor: Anne Marie Dragosits