Step inside Botticelli’s Primavera for an intimate evening of Renaissance music, myth, and philosophy. Guided by Hermes, this performance moves through the spirit of the painting.

Our project began from a question at the heart of the Renaissance: what if music, poetry, myth, and philosophy were not separate, but a practice that renews the soul? Inspired by the world of the Florentine Camerata—the musical Academy whose experiments in ancient drama, song, and expressive speech helped give birth to early opera—and by the Neoplatonic revival of Plato, Ficino, Pico, and the ancient theologians, La Primavera explores music as a spiritual and philosophical exercise.

Featuring live music, including works by Monteverdi and his contemporaries, La Primavera combines song, projected image, and short philosophical interludes inspired by Plato, Ficino, Pico, Iamblichus, Diotima, Aphrodite, and Eros. These interludes are not lectures, but listening invitations—brief moments that prepare the audience to hear the music and see the painting differently.

La Primavera, Palinode’s first public performance in Portland, has been developed through a series of workshops that brought together professional musicians and philosophers, drawing upon a form of vital play where philosophy, music, image, myth and live performance come together as a shared ritual of renewal. Come ready to listen, look, and enter the garden.