GEMAS: Early Music of the Americas
series co-curators Nell Snaidas and Sebastián Zubieta
GEMAS is a collaboration of Gotham Early Music Scene (GEMS) and Americas Society (AS). The concert series' mission is to present the finest early music repertoire and artists of the Americas. The series was founded in 2012 as part of GEMS' milestone Fifth Anniversary celebrations, and is co-directed by the celebrated soprano Nell Snaidas and Americas Society Music Director Sebastián Zubieta.
The mission of GEMAS is to bring remarkable early music from the Americas and the best early music performers from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada to New York audiences. Since 2012, the series has presented lutenist Paul O'Dette, Ars Subtilior specialists Mala Punica, Furio Zanasi, Eduardo Egüez, Meridionalis, and The Bishop's Band, among others, at Americas Society's own Salón Bolivar, The Hispanic Society of America, and Trinity Wall Street, as well as the Italian Academy and St Paul's Chapel at Columbia University. Spanish ensemble Musica Ficta released the recording of their New York debut concert at The Hispanic Society of America on the Euromusic label in 2015.
San Francisco Girls Chorus 2019
Valérie Sainte-Agathe, conductor and artistic director
“Daring Sisters/Atrevidas Hermanas” Nell Snaidas, guest curator, coach & performer
A program of Latin American Baroque Music inspired by the writings of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz or the San Francisco Girls Choir, featuring Richard Savino’s GRAMMY nominated ensemble El Mundo and sopranos Jennifer Ellis Kampani and Nell Snaidas
** San Francisco Classical Voice Best Choral Performance Award of 2019/2020
“the remarkable San Francisco Girls Chorus took the honors for a program that payed homage to homage to one of the leading feminist figures of the 17th century Latin American Baroque era, Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz, known for her staunch advocacy of women’s rights to pursue an intellectual life, and to study and be recognized as equal to men.”
Toronto Chamber Choir
Lucas Harris, conductor and artistic director
“Convivencia” Nell Snaidas, guest curator, coach & performer
Jews, Musilims and Christians co-existed in relative peace during the Convivencia period in Mediaval and Renaissance Spain. A surprising amount of cultural amalgamation took place in the arts: Classical Greek texts were translated simultaneously into Hebrew, Arabic and Latin. Architecture blended elements of synagogues, mosques and cathedrals. The music of all three religions also flourished, with each borrowing stylistic elements from the others. Blending Sephardic songs, classical Arabic Melodies, and Spanish polyphony, this ensemble revels in the musical exchange that took place between the world’s three great monotheistic religions..
Lucas Harris, lute, conductor • Nell Snaidas, guest curator, voice, guitar • Ronnie Malley, oud, voice • Daphna Mor, recorder, ney, voice, Ben Grossman, percussion
Newberry Consort
Ellen Hargis and David Douglass, Directors
Sacred Love: "Songs of the Sephardim" with guest curator Nell Snaidas
Music of faith and longing from Renaissance Spain and the Ladino oral tradition of the Sephardic Jews. Presented in partnership with Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies and Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership.
“Sacred Love — Songs of the Sephardim” offered aural rewards of many sorts...compelling little tales of courtship and exile, songs of faith and family, funny ballads and wistful laments. The program painted a vivid portrait of secular and sacred everyday life in medieval Spain and beyond, at once Iberian and Middle Eastern in flavor."
–Chicago Tribune
"The concert was led by guest curator and performer Nell Snaidas — a captivating storyteller and crystalline singer in everything she sang — Everything was executed with a stylish exuberance so infectious that audience members gladly sang and clapped along."
–Chicago Tribune
Schola Antiqua
Michael Alan Anderson, Director
“Sounds of Faith in Medieval Jerusalem” with guest curators Nell Snaidas, Amro Helmy, oud, Matthew Dean
An acclaimed soundscape of sacred and devotional song developed for The Met Cloisters museum, this one-hour program brings medieval traditions to life with sounds of status quo and religious change in and around Jerusalem. The program has also been presented at the Perimeter Institute in Toronto, CA, at the Michigan Festival of Sacred Music and the Lumen Christi Institute in Chicago.
Concordia Chamber Players (Bucks County PA) & MusikiWest (Palo Alto, CA)
Michelle Djokic, Director
“¡Fandango!” with guest curator Nell Snaidas, soprano, renaissance guitar
Soprano Nell Snaidas, praised by the New York Times for her “vocally ravishing” performances, curates this program which will take us from the Spanish Baroque to the music of Peru, Guatemala, and Mexico in the New World. Joining Nell will be Daniel Swenberg on lute and theorbo, Rex Benincasa with all things percussive, Francisco Fullana and Siwoo Kim on violin, and Michelle Djokic playing cello-continuo.
Dallas Bach Society
James Richman, Conductor
Nell created two programs for the Dallas Bach Society:
"Around the Mediterranean" (Nell Snaidas, soprano, James Richman, harpsichord) awarded "Best Classical Concert of the Year" by Theater Jones
"Repertorio Español" (Nell Snaidas, soprano with the Dallas Bach Society ) curated for the Meadows Museum of Spanish Art
Bach Collegium San Diego
Ruben Valenzuela, conductor
"An Empire of Silver and Gold:Music of 18th century Latin America" co-directed Daniel Zuluaga, Nell Snaidas
Included in top 10 Classical concerts of the year by San Diego Story (2016)
"Musical thrills also came from local organizations. Ruben Valenzuela’s Bach Collegium San Diego gave us “An Empire of Silver and Gold,” a revelatory concert of choral, vocal, and instrumental music from Latin America’s Baroque efflorescence. European choral and instrumental practice intermingled with indigenous dance rhythms and even local humor. Combining the Bach Collegium’s customary historical insights and polish with unstinting verve, this concert, co-directed by Nell Snaidas and Daniel Zuluaga in the University of San Diego’s opulent Spanish colonial Founders Chapel, astounded at every turn."
Apollo's Fire
Jeannette Sorrell, conductor
Co-directed and co-created with conductor, Jeannette Sorrell the highly-acclaimed program, "Sephardic Journey" for Apollo's Fire:The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra.
Debuted #2 on Billboard World Music Chart, #7 on Billboard Classical Music Chart
Included in St. Louis Dispatch's Highlights of 2016
"Sephardic Journey certainly has the potential to be the ensemble's biggest hit ... Sorrell and company have a new favorite on their hands"
–Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Innovative and brilliant new program"
–Cool Cleveland
“Revelatory… convivially theatrical… The soloists and instrumentalists are first-class.”
–BBC Music Magazine
Bishop's Band
Nell Snaidas, artistic director
The Bishop's Band, is named for the Bishop of Trujillo del Perú, Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón who compiled, in the late-18th century, a fascinating collection containing watercolor depictions of life in the region and 20 popular songs and dances. The group was gathered together in 2013 by Tom Zajac and Nell Snaidas to perform repertory from this collection as well as other 18th-century Latin American music. The ensemble is made up of some of the leading early music singers and instrumentalists from across the US and has presented Tom Zajac's "CODEX Trujillo del Perú" at the Hispanic Society in New York City, at the Pittsburgh Renaissance and Baroque Society and as a part of Trinity Wall Street's "Twelfth Night Festival" as well as "Christmas Music of Latin America" with the ensemble Meridionalis.
Madison Early Music Festival Workshop 2017
Nell Snaidas, stage director, vocal and diction coach
La Púrpura de la Rosa, Tomás de Torrejón y Velazco
Queens College Opera Workshop 2018
Nell Snaidas stage director
Scenes from the Monteverdi Trilogy “L’Incoronazione di Poppea” “L’Orfeo” “Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria”
Bloomington Early Music Festival 2019
Nell Snaidas, stage director, vocal and diction coach
La Púrpura de la Rosa, Tomás de Torrejón y Velazco
Music of the Americas / Americas Society EN CASA Guest Curator of Early Music Week 2021
Music of the Americas' video series En Casa (At Home), and Recuerdos (Memories) are back with a week of early music curated by our friend, soprano and co-director of the GEMAS series, Nell Snaidas.
Snaidas selected a stellar group of early music performers from Latin America, Canada, and the United States who sent us their versions of classics of the European baroque alongside pieces from Mexico and Bolivia.
https://www.as-coa.org/articles/music-americas-early-music-week
Queens College/Aaron Copeland School of the Arts 2021
Nell Snaidas, stage director
Dido and Aeneas, Henry Purcell
NYU/Steinhardt School of the Arts 2021
Nell Snaidas, stage director
Orfeo ed Euridice, Christoph Willibald Gluck