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Musica Secreta is a British vocal ensemble, founded in 1991 by soprano Deborah Roberts to explore music written by and for women in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 2000, musicologist Laurie Stras joined the ensemble as a co-director. The group has made several award-winning CDs, and their live collaboration with novelist Sarah Dunant, a musical dramatization of Dunant’s novel Sacred Hearts, ran between 2009 and 2012.

Their current project, Lucrezia Borgia’s Daughter, is a recording of the earliest known published music intended for performance by nuns: the CD is scheduled for release on Obsidian Records (The Gift of Music (record label) in 2017.  The recording features motets printed in the anonymous Musica quinque vocum motteta materna lingua vocata printed in 1543, at least some which may have been written by Suor Leonora d'Este, the only surviving daughter of Lucrezia Borgia and Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara.

Members
The original members of the group were Roberts, Tessa Bonner, Mary Nichols, and the harpsichordist John Toll. Current members have sung with the Tallis Scholars, the Consort of Musicke, The Sixteen, and Magnificat. Past collaborators include Suzie LeBlanc (The Secret Music of Luzzasco Luzzaschi), Emily Van Evera (Dangerous Graces), Catherine King (Songs of ecstasy and devotion, Dialogues with Heaven, Dangerous Graces), and Clare Wilkinson (Sacred Hearts, Secret Music). Featured instrumentalists include Paula Chateauneuf, David Miller and Lynda Sayce (lute, theorbo, and chittarone); Frances Kelly (harp); Mark Levy and Kinga Gáborjáni (viol); Matthew Halls and Nicholas Parle (organ and harpsichord). The current instrumental team are Claire Williams and Alison Kinder.

Celestial Sirens
Roberts and Stras also co-direct an elite amateur female-voice choir, Celestial Sirens. Musica Secreta and Celestial Sirens first performed together at the Brighton Early Music Festival in 2006. Stras’s work with Celestial Sirens was recognised by the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement in 2014, for Best Individually-Led Project in the Engage Awards 2014.

Awards

 * Diapason (magazine) Diapason Découverte, 2002 for Dangerous Graces
 * Society for the Study of Early Modern Women, "Best Arts and Media Project," 2007 for Alessandro Grandi: Motetti a cinque voci (1614)
 * Gramophone (magazine) Editor's Choice, November 2009 for Sacred Hearts, Secret Music
 * American Musicological Society Noah Greenberg Award 2016 for "Lucrezia Borgia’s Daughter''

Recordings

 * The Secret Music of Luzzasco Luzzaschi: Luzzasco Luzzaschi: Madrigali… a uno, doi e tre soprani (1601) Amon Ra CD-SAR 58 (1992)
 * La virtuosissima cantatrice: the vocal music of Barbara Strozzi (1619-c.1665) Amon Ra CD-SAR 61 (1994)
 * Songs of ecstasy and devotion - Lucrezia Vizzana: Componimenti musicali (1623) Linn Records CKD 071 (1997)
 * Dialogues With Heaven: motets by Chiara Margherita Cozzolani Linn Records CKD 113 (2000)
 * Dangerous Graces: Music by Cipriano de Rore and his pupils Linn CKD 169 (2002)
 * Alessandro Grandi: Motetti a cinque voci (1614) divine art DDA 25062 (2007)
 * Sacred Hearts, Secret Music divine art DDA 25077 (2009)
 * Lucrezia Borgia’s Daughter Obsidian Records CD717 (2017)