Cellist Susan Lamb Cook started the Great Composers Chamber Music Series at a time when the need for music performance was paramount in Sacramento. The Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera had taken the year off to reorganize and Cook was determined to keep the music she loved alive and available for the community.
She turned to the VITA Academy whose mission it is to focus on music education and innovative music programming in the region to partner with her on the series. The first concert for the Great Composers Chamber Music Series was held in 2014. Now, in its 11th season, the series kicked off this week with a fascinating program featuring the unlikely pairing of two heroines of the 19th century: Adelaide Ristori and Clara Schumann.
Cook’s vision to combine the music of Schumann with the personal tale of actress and entrepreneur Ristori was inspired by the work of her friend and collaborator, Giulia Cailloto.
Cailloto, who is from Verona, Italy is the author of the book, “The Admirable Construction of Me” that fuses the legacy and inspiration of Ristori with her own venture which she calls Business Theater. Cailloto describes Business Theater as “a method that uses artistic tools in order to improve communication skills with a focus on feminine empowerment using storytelling."
Cailloto explains, “I’m working with a lot of women in Italy that want to improve their communication skills, that want to transform themselves. I needed a model to tell these women that they can change. In Italy, [this is] a problem. You can’t have everything in Italy as a woman. You are a mother or you have a career.”
Cailloto is making her first trip to the United States to debut a new script that tells the story of Adelaide Ristori and the challenges she faced to make a name for herself in the 1800s.
I spoke with Cook and Cailloto to learn more about this weekend's program, called “Ahead of Their Time” which takes place this Sunday at the Harris Center in Folsom.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
On the concept of music and monologue in concert
Cook: “I did a program similar to this about 8 years ago actually with the music of Robert and Clara Schumann and Donna Apidone participated in that program and did the readings from the conversation books of Robert and Clara and so this is just an extension of that concept so the program is similar in that sense. But now there’s a different character, there’s Adelaide Ristori who’s intertwined into the Clara Schumann story.”
On the impetus for the program “Ahead of Their Time”
Cook: “This all started about a year and a half ago when we met up in Verona and we were chatting about this and Giulia told me about her work and I thought, “Adelaide Ristori – that’s exactly the same time period as Clara Schumann in Germany.” And their stories are very similar in that way.
And Giulia began doing research and so she’s developed this wonderful script which tells the story of Adelaide Ristori but also tells the story of Clara Schumann so they’re both intertwined.”
On Adelaide Ristori
Cailloto: “[Adelaide Ristori] was a very famous actress in the 19th century but she was very weird, a very weird figure because she was an actress – a poor actress, but she married a Marquis. And in the common sense, she’d have to stop her career and [live] the noble life. But she decided, ‘No, I want everything.’”
On Clara Schumann
Cailloto: “She was [a child prodigy] and then she got married against her father’s wish and then she had to wait. She had to wait for the right time to flower… but then she flowered. And she composed and played her own music until [her] death.”
