Organ built for nun's choir room in Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Built in 1709 by Manuel de la Vina.

In 1742 Antonia Maria Montero de Hoz (born 1725) entered the novitiate at the Convent of the Visitation in Toledo, Spain. An orphan, she had impaired vision and would be completely blind by her mid-twenties. She lacked both the larger dowry required for marriage and the smaller dowry required for admission into convents. However, she was an excellent singer and a skilled organist. The Convent of the Visitation therefore offered her a dowry waiver in exchange for serving as the convent organist.

Antonia Maria was far from unique in her role as a nun musician. In addition to organists and singers, other professional female musicians in Spanish convents included harpists, players of the cello, violin, oboe and cornet. Spanish nun musicians, contracted for life by their dowry waivers, numbered in the hundreds.

The demands placed on these nun musicians were rigorous. They were in charge of the daily offices and special feast day celebrations. They supplied entertainment during community's recreation hour, and they taught music to other nuns. Sometimes they worked for forty to fifty years, only giving up their posts because of illness or infirmity. If they voluntarily relinquished their post, they would be required to repay their dowry waiver on a pro-rated basis.

Convents competed to attract the best musicians. Many convents staged elaborate musical celebrations on feast days. Their choral performances attracted large enthusiastic audiences who could hear, but were not permitted to see, the nuns. Nuns' choirs excelled in vocal polyphony, a musical form in which two or more independent melodies are sung simultaneously. Nuns' music, in its order and harmony, was believed to banish evil spirits and to attract the sevenfold power of the Holy Spirit. The unsullied musical sisters were compared to the unblemished choirs of the Apocalypse, singing eternal praise to the Lamb.

Music was written by and for nuns. However, nuns reported feeling tension between the recognition that they received for their musical talents and the self-effacement that their religious state required of them. Maria Vela (1516-1617), a nun in Avila, whipped her fingers and hands with a cord so as not to be distracted by their beauty when she played the organ. She described her duties as an organist as interrupting her spiritual practices. Yet for others, such as Antonia Maria, the post as convent musician created no dilemmas. It offered a rare form of self-sufficiency, an outlet for personal talent, and a secure home for the remainder of life.

Most Spanish organs, including those in convents, had only one manual and a limited pedal range. At Christ Church, we will hear the organ sounds that emanate from the premier Spanish organ builder Jordi Bosch. We may even hear the music particularly associated with the professional female musicians of Spain.