Antonia Padoani Bembo (c. 1640 - 1720) lived an extremely untypical life for a woman of her time. As the daughter of Giacomo Padoani, a doctor working in Venice and Padua, she was a pupil of Francesco Cavalli and soon became known as «la figlia che canta». She would probably have married Francesco Corbetta, a famous guitarist, if her family had not urged her to marry the patrician Lorenzo Bembo. The latter turned out to be a problematic personality and a notorious liar. Antonia then fled from Venice to Paris, as the city council would not agree to a divorce. Supported by Corbetta, who advanced to become Louis XIV's instrumental teacher in Versailles, she would eventually succeed in gaining a foothold at the court of the Sun King.

«Eine Venezianerin in Paris» traces the path of Antonia Bembo as well as the special development that her compositional work took throughout her life. The «Produzioni armoniche», written between 1695 and 1700, are an ideal way of tracing this path, starting with emotionally charged settings of Italian poetry and moving towards the mainly sacred music of her later years.

The ensemble Accademia degli Stravaganti, conducted by the internationally renowned harpsichordist Anne Marie Dragosits, compares the music of Bembo with selected works by Cavalli and Barbara Strozzi, but also by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, whose oeuvre has established itself as one of the most important from the French High Baroque period. The soprano Ulrike Hofbauer and Leila Schayegh on the violin, both outstanding masters of their craft, will also be part of the concert.