Quiet, Piggy! Women Monastics in Song and Silence

Name: Quiet, Piggy! Women Monastics in Song and Silence
Start: 2026-02-25T12:30:00-08:00
End: 2026-02-25T14:00:00-08:00
Location: College Building North, Riverside, CA, United States, California 92521

Schedule

Wed Feb 25 2026 at 12:30 pm to 02:00 pm

UTC-08:00

Location

College Building North, Riverside, CA, United States, California 92521 | Riverside, CA

Brett Umlauf and Noah Arjomand will present a series of their audiovisual collaborations that address the lives and music of women monastics across millennia of history, probing the complex relationships among physical confinement, intellectual freedom, theocratic hierarchy, and artistic expression. Between reflections on the continued relevance and power of song in the face of masculinist enforced silencing, Brett and Noah will share…
- Brett’s performance of the music of Hildegard of Bingen, who in 1179 resisted church authorities’ censorship forbidding her convent from singing mass;
- their animated music video for a composition of 17th-century Milanese nun Rosa Giacinta Badalla, who in her day defied an edict against polyphonic music. Her motet celebrates 6th-century Saint Radegund’s escape from the royal palace to monastic life;
- excerpts from a film collaboration with UCR experimental choreography MFA alumna Mariia Bakalo on 9th-century hymnographer Kassia of Byzantium, who declared “I hate silence when it is a time to speak”--and legendarily spoiled her chances of becoming empress with a sharp-tongued retort to the emperor;
- an excerpt of a new opera by Kate Soper, in which Brett plays one of three virtuous maidens put out as unicorn bait who slowly develop solidarity and learn to resist patriarchal oppression.
Speakers
Brett Umlauf (she/her) brought her "pealing, focused sound" and "luminous yet earthy" (New York Times) performances to NYC for over a decade with Morningside Opera, Company XIV and SIREN Baroque and originated the roles of Peitho (HERE BE SIRENS) and Fleur (THE HUNT) in Pulitzer-finalist Kate Soper’s new music opera premieres. She is co-founder of the SUORE Project, a trio dedicated to spotlighting works by unsung nun composers. Brett’s own travel-performance project HAZELNUT ROAD: Vows of Stability, Acts of Mobility, recently won her a Fulbright Research Fellowship to Greece and Turkey. Brett holds a BA in Classics from Dartmouth College, an MLIS from the Palmer School and a Performer Diploma in Historical Voice from Jacobs School of Music. She is currently a Visiting Specialist in Media & Cultural Studies at UCR.
Noah Amir Arjomand (he/him) is a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Media & Cultural Studies at UCR. A filmmaker and media scholar, Noah makes documentary, narrative, experimental, and animated films and since 2010 has collaborated with music and theatre groups including Morningside Opera, Wet Ink Ensemble, SIREN Baroque, Mercury Arts, and SUORE Project. His first documentary feature film, EAT YOUR CATFISH, aired on POV on PBS and won the 2024 Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary. He earned a bachelor’s in Public & International Affairs from Princeton University, a PhD in sociology from Columbia University, and an MFA in screenwriting from UCR.
Sponsored by the Being Human Initiative at the UCR Center for Ideas & Society.