Performance Activity Exhibition
Ink & Outrage: Songs & Satire
Thursday, July 9 6:00-8:00 pm Buy Tickets General Admission: $35 | Member: $30 | Student: $18
The works on view in Ink & Outrage: 18th Century Satirical Prints in London & Dublin reveal a world of biting and provocative humor that was part of the larger culture at the time. Georgian Britain had a veritable community of visual artists, composers, and writers who skewered the follies of elite society, political corruption, and the kind of outrageously-human behavior. The caricaturists shared the perceptive and acerbic spirit of writers like Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth, and Thomas Love Peacock, and composes such as Charles Dibdin and Stephen Storace. At the same time, Ireland was romanticized in England with ballads and melancholy songs.
Art historian Jeff Nigro will delve into how this imagery functions in its historical context. Soprano Josefien Stoppelenburg and pianist Stephen Alltop will offer musical perspectives with a variety of whimsical and reflective songs, and that favorite of the Georgian parlor, The Battle of Prague by František Kocžwara.
About the Musicians
Dutch soprano Josefien Stoppelenburg is best known for her dazzling vocal agility and her passionate and insightful interpretations. Stoppelenburg has performed all over the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America as a Baroque Music and Oratorio specialist, and as a concert singer. She and her sister Charlotte were the first singers to win the national Princess Christina Competition in the Netherlands. This season, Josefien is appearing with groups such as Ars Lyrica and Harmonia Stellarum (Houston), the Bach Society of St Louis, the Indianapolis Early Music Festival, Apollo’s Fire and for various concerts in the Netherlands. She has performed for the Dutch Royal family on several occasions. Josefien is also a painter. Her colorful works can be found in many private homes, on note cards, a children’s book and on fashion items.
Stephen Alltop serves as Music Director of the Apollo Chorus of Chicago, the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, and the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra. A specialist in oratorio and historical performance practice, he has been a member of the conducting and keyboard faculties at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University where he conducts the Alice Millar Chapel Choir and the Baroque Music Ensemble. Stephen Alltop has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as both a harpsichord and organ soloist. He has performed with the Joffrey Ballet, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, Omaha Symphony, and the Peninsula Music Festival. Alltop served as Coordinator for WFMT’s Bach Organ Project in 2014, and the WFMT Bach Keyboard Festival in 2015, and has performed as a keyboard artist across Europe.
Dr. Alltop has guest conducted orchestras and choruses in the United States, Europe and South Korea. He has led world premieres of works by John Luther Adams, Jan Bach, Frank Ferko, Stacy Garrop, Stephen Paulus, Joseph Schwantner, and many others. In June of 2022, he stepped in on four-hours notice to lead the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in a program of Beethoven, Schubert and Tchaikovsky that was broadcast live on WFMT. He returned to the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in August of 2023. An advocate for diversity in programming, he has sought to bring attention to under-represented composers in both the orchestral and choral realm. Dr. Alltop lectures frequently about music for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Northwestern University Alumnae Continuing Education Series and Osher Lifelong Learning. Since 2014, he has given presentations on leadership for various programs in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern.
About the Speaker
Jeff Nigro has had a professional relationship with the Art Institute of Chicago for over 30 years, including serving as Director of Adult Programs in the Department of Museum Education from 2003 to 2010 and as a Research Associate in the Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium from 2014 to 2026. Jeff is currently an Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Interpretation at the Art Institute. In his capacity as Research Associate, he assisted the co-curators of the 2025 exhibition Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection. Jeff also teaches Adult Education Seminars at the Newberry Library. He is a frequent speaker for the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) and he is a former Regional Coordinator of the Greater Chicago region of JASNA. His essay “Georgian Fangirls: Women and Castrati in Eighteenth-Century London” appears in Women and Music in the Age of Austen, edited by Linda Zionkowski and Miriam Hart (Bucknell University Press, 2023).