Teresa of Avila [Working Title]

by Pablo Ortiz

For premiere in Fall 2019

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For voice and piano, with version for voice, marimba and harp

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Teresa of Avila was a 16th-century Carmelite nun and mystic who wrote detailed and practical advice for those seeking spiritual enlightenment.  In her Camino de Perfección and El Castillo Interiór, she left subsequent generations an invaluable resource, describing seven stages ( or ‘mansions’) on the path to God. These texts are all the more noteworthy because they describe union with the divine in a female body. The Vatican recognized her importance by naming her the first female Doctor of the Church in 1970, thereby making her writings part of the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church.