The next blog post in the Women’s Orchestra Series highlights Canadian string ensemble La Pietà, founded by violinist Angèle Dubeau in 1997. She originally started the ensemble as an experiment for periodic recordings, but it has since become a full-time occupation.
Despite having a strong career playing solo recitals around the globe, Dubeau admitted that she “wanted to share music with others onstage”. Dubeau began to put some names on a piece of paper, all the people she thought she might like to play with. “After I had about five names, I looked up and said, ‘How funny. The first five names I came up with are all women.’ And then I thought, ‘I wonder if I could get up to 14 or 15 musicians and just keep picking women?’ And that’s how La Pietà was born.”
She named her new ensemble after the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, an orphanage where, over 300 years ago, young female orphans and illegitimate women were given the opportunity to study music with Vivaldi himself.
From early on the ensemble had a great reputation, with their exceptional virtuosity, impeccable precision, rich interpretations and contagious happiness gaining them opportunities to play in Canada’s most prestigious venues and on television.
Angèle Dubeau and La Pietà have travelled the world for over 20 years and been featured in over 25 albums, with the most recent release, an album of Philip Glass music, in November 2023. In February 2022, the landmark album, Elle, was released to simultaneously mark the 25th anniversary of the formation of La Pietà in 1997 and the 46th album of Dubeau’s career. All 15 of the pieces on Elle are by female composers, mostly modern but with Hildegard von Bingen as the exception. When asked about the album, Dubeau responded: “I’m very proud of this album. I’m proud to be a woman working with so many other talented women.”
With so many successful albums already, it will be exciting to see what such an inspirational ensemble can and will still do in future.
If you’re enjoying these blogs please feel free to get in touch to ask more about women’s orchestras or request my full dissertation to read.
References:
Outhere Music (no date). La Pietà, Ensemble. Available at: https://outhere-music.com/en/artists/la-pieta (Accessed: 9th August 2024).
Strings Magazine (no date). Angèle Dubeau Celebrates 25 Years With Her All-Female Ensemble, La Pietà. Available at: https://stringsmagazine.com/angele-dubeau-celebrates-25-years-with-her-all-female-ensemble-la-pieta/ (Accessed: 9th August 2024)
Wolf, Chris (2022). ‘Elle: The women of La Pieta celebrate 25 years of owning the stage’, Winnipeg’s Classic 107. Available at: https://classic107.com/articles/elle-the-women-of-la-pieta-celebrate-25-years-of-owning-the-stage (Accessed: 5th August 2023).
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