Carthage Conquer'd

Ensemble Eneide

Jessica Gould, soprano

Fatima Gozlan, ney

Christa Patton, recorders and baroque harp

Mary Riccardi & Dongmyung Ahn, violins

Brian Prunka, oud

Arash Noori, theorbo

John Mark Rozendaal, baroque cello

Gwendolyn Toth, harpsichord

The capital of Tunisia was once the legendary city of Carthage. Its Queen Dido, loved then abandoned by Aeneas on his mission to found Rome, inspired countless musical masterworks from the baroque era to Berlioz. This concert alternates baroque cantatas and arias dedicated to the Carthaginian Queen with the Arabic form of improvisation known as Taksim, as two ensembles – one baroque and the other North African, share a stage, offering a new hearing of Dido the misused monarch and the site of Northern Africa as both exploited resource and object of fantasy in the Western European mythscape.

Music of Cavalli, Couperin, DeVisée, Legrenzi, Montéclair, and Purcell, with traditional Taksim improvisations.