? - fl second half of the 18th century - ?

Italian instrumentalist, singer and composer.

She was a member of the coro (music school) of the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice during the tenure of the music director Bonaventura Furlanetto.
Her patrician surname indicates that she was not a foundling, as were most of the wards of the Pietà, but an external pupil who either paid tuition or had been awarded a scholarship. (The music school had been founded in the late 17th century to train girls as musicians and was later reserved exclusively for daughters of the nobility).
Da Ponte is one of five composers so far identified among the members of the coro at the Pietà.
Her known works are an unpublished set of four dances in a collection of monferrine (Piemontese dances) composed in about 1775.

Bibliography

J.L. Baldauf-Berdes: Women Musicians of Venice: Musical Foundations, 1525–1855 (Oxford, 1993)
Grove Music Online: www.oxfordmusiconline.com

Author

Jane L. Berdes