What hap­pens when you per­form vocal music with­out the voic­es? Traverso­lute duo Liane Sadler and Elias Conrad put this to the test, trans­lat­ing some wild and pro­gres­sive com­po­si­tions by Madalena Casulana (ca. 1540­-ca. 1590) into pure sound. Impulses from the lyrics inspire an inno­v­a­tive appli­ca­tion of his­tor­i­cal tech­niques, such as diminu­tions, arrange­ments and impro­vi­sa­tions. Sadler and Conrad thus trans­form the words of the songs into an expres­sive musi­cal dialogue. 

With music by Madalena Casulana (ca. 1540-­ca. 1590), Cipriano de Rore (1515/6-­1565), Giorgio Mainerio (c. 1530­-1582) & Orlando di Lasso (1532­1594)