The program presents music from the
Manuscrit des Ursulines de la Nouvelle-Orléans, the only surviving musical manuscript from colonial Louisiana. The MS has been in the possession of the Ursuline Sisters of New Orleans since 1754, and consists of sacred contrafacta of music by Lully, Couperin, Clérembault, Campra, Charpentier, and many others. Musical excerpts from the manuscript will be interspersed with readings from the sisters' diaries, including accounts of their trip from Rouen to New Orleans in the 1720s, and some descriptions of life in New Orleans during the French colonial period.