Museum of Art and Design Presents DISORDO VIRTUTUM

Making its world premiere, Disordo Virtutum is an online performance by Ethan Philbrick for six remote vocalists, a cello, and recorded sound that uses the twelfth-century mystic, philosopher, and composer Hildegard von Bingen's morality play Ordo Virtutum (Order of the Virtues) as a blueprint for reckoning with the moral imperatives of our time.

In von Bingen's masterpiece of medieval music, the devil and seventeen personified virtues fight over the fate of a fallen soul. Each of the virtues gets a solo before Chastity crushes the devil's head under her foot. In Disordo Virtutum, the virtues have been reimagined for our current moment-Underlying Condition, Distance, Riot, Planning, and Abolition-with the audience occupying the position of both the fallen soul and the devil.

The performance has been conceived especially for an intimate audience of just 20 over Zoom, with the expectation that participants will keep their cameras on and participate in small, but important, ways.

A morality play for modern times, Disordo Virtutum is ultimately a hopeful meditation on what it might mean to live a moral life.

If you are a Trustee, Patron, or Luminaries member, please contact Catherine Farrell at catherine.farrell@madmuseum.org to receive instructions for joining this program.