GEMS and Trinity Wall Street Present Parthenia & Sinfonia New York in Twelfth Night Festival, 12/27 & 29

By: BWW News Desk Nov. 06, 2012

Next month, Gotham Early Music Scene (GEMS) will partner with Trinity Wall Street Church to present two concerts in Trinity's annual Twelfth Night Festival of Early Music, which runs from Wednesday, December 26, 2012 through Sunday, January 6, 2013.

On Thursday, December 27, 2012, at 7:30 p.m., Parthenia, a quartet of viols, will present "As It Fell on a Holie Eve – Music for an Elizabethan Christmas" with guest artist, soprano Julianne Baird. On Saturday, December 29, 2012 at 3:00 p.m., Sinfonia New York, along with the Trinity Wall Street Choir, will offer a one-hour "Concert for Children of All Ages," a New York spin on a British tradition, the King's College Chapel Christmas Eve service, featuring music by J.S. Bach, and a reading of Clement Clarke Moore's 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Both concerts will take place at Trinity Wall Street Church, Broadway at Wall Street, and are part of GEMS' Fifth Anniversary Celebration.

Gene Murrow, Executive Director of GEMS, says, "In the last three years, Trinity Church has made enormous contributions to New York City's early music scene with its choir, Baroque orchestra, and concert presentations. GEMS is very proud to partner with Trinity in presenting these special holiday concerts with an English pedigree and a New York accent."

Parthenia
Thursday, December 27, 2012, 7:30 p.m.
Trinity Wall Street Church | Broadway at Wall Street
Tickets: $25 – General Admission
By Phone: 212/866-0468 | Online: www.gemsny.org | or at the Door

As It Fell on a Holie Eve
"Music for an Elizabethan Christmas"

Rosamund Morley, treble viol | Lawrence Lipnik, tenor viol
Beverly Au, bass viol | Lisa Terry, bass viol
with Julianne Baird, soprano

A glittering array of songs, dances and carols from Elizabethan England. Along with music by Thomas Morley, Anthony Holborne, Thomas Ravenscroft, Dr. John Bull and Tobias Hume, this concert will feature a wide variety of music by the celebrated master composer of England's Golden Age, William Byrd. The program has toured throughout the United States; this will be its only performance in New York this season.

Program
Prelude and Voluntary | William Byrd (1543-1623)
Remember, O Thou Man | Thomas Ravenscroft (c. 1582-1635)
From Virgin's Womb this Day did Spring | Byrd
From Pavans, Galliards, Almains and other short Aeirs (1599) | Anthony Holborne (c. 1550-1602)
As it fell on a Holie Eve • The Cradle • The Night Watch
From Gradualia seu cantionum sacrarum (1607) | Byrd
O magnum misterium • Vidimus stellam • Puer natus est
Gentil Madonna | Dublin Virginal Manuscript (c. 1600)
Sweet was the Song the Virgin Sung | Anonymous (c. 1600)
Fantasia a 4 | Byrd
Out of the Orient Crystal Skies | Byrd
Fantasia a 4 | Giovanni Coprario (c. 1570-1626)
Fantasia a 3 | Byrd
Lully, lulla | Shearmen & Tailors carol (1591)
Gigge | John Bull (c. 1562-1628)
Fantasia La sampogna | Thomas Morley (1557-1602)
Fantasia a 4 | Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger (c. 1575-1628)
Divisions on Greensleeves | Anonymous (mid-17th century)
The Old Year Now Away is Fled | Traditional Waits' carol (1642)

Parthenia is a quartet of viols dedicated to the performance of ancient and contemporary repertoires. Parthenia is presented in concerts across America, and produces its own series in New York City, collaborating regularly with the world's foremost early music artists and ensembles, and has been featured on radio and television as well as in such festivals, series and venues as wide-ranging as Music Before 1800, the Pierpont Morgan Library, Columbia University's Miller Theatre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Yale Center for British Art, the Harriman-Jewell Series in Kansas City, and the Tage Alter Musik Festival in Regensburg, Germany.

Parthenia's unique variety of performances range from its popular touring program, "When Music & Sweet Poetry Agree," a celebration of Elizabethan poetry and music with actor Paul Hecht and mezzo-soprano Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek of Anonymous 4, to the complete viol fantasies of Henry Purcell and complete instrumental works of Robert Parsons, as well as commissions and premieres of many new works by composers such as Phil Kline, Richard Einhorn, Brian Fennelly, Will Ayton, Max Lifchitz, Kristin Norderval, David Glaser, and Frances White. The ensemble was featured along with frequent collaborators, the renaissance wind band Piffaro, in the Philadelphia premiere of the comic opera The Loathly Lady, by librettist Wendy Steiner and composer Paul Richards, based on Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale. Parthenia is in residence at Corpus Christi Church in New York, and is the Beatrice Diener Early Music Ensemble-in-Residence at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University in New York.

Parthenia has recorded Les Amours de Mai, a collection of songs and instrumental works from renaissance France, with soprano Julianne Baird and violinist Robert Mealy; A Reliquary for William Blake; Within the Labyrinth; and Parthenia Sampler; and was featured on jazz trumpeter Randy Sandke's Trumpet After Dark. The ensemble's 2010 release, As it Fell on a Holie Eve – Music for an Elizabethan Christmas, with soprano Julianne Baird, was the featured holiday CD on the syndicated radio program Sunday Baroque in December 2010.

Parthenia is represented by GEMS Live! Artist Management and records for MSR Classics. For more information, visit www.parthenia.org.

Sinfonia New York
Saturday, December 29, 2012, 3:00 p.m.
Trinity Wall Street Church | Broadway at Wall Street
Tickets: $25 – General Admission
By Phone: 212/866 – 0468 | Online: www.gemsny.org | or at the Door

A Concert for Children of All Ages

Christine Gummere, Artistic Director
with the Trinity Wall Street Choir, Andrew Megill, Guest Conductor
Marika Holmqvist, concertmaster
Dongmyung Ahn, violin | Alissa Smith, viola
Christine Gummere, cello | David Chapman, violone
Priscilla Smith, oboe | Kristin Olson, oboe
John Thiessen, trumpet | Nathan Botts, trumpet | Patrick Dougherty, trumpet
James Baker, timpani

Just over an hour in length, this concert is a New York version of the famous "Festival of Lessons and Carols," the Christmas Eve service at King's College Chapel in Cambridge. Instead of scripture, there will be a reading of New York City's very own poem about Santa Claus and his work on behalf of all children. All who are young, and young of heart, will enjoy the richness of festive and contemplative music expressing the joy and hope of the Christmas season.

Sinfonia New York is a period-instrument orchestra that specializes in historically informed, vibrant performances of 17th-, 18th- and early 19th-century music. Since its Town Hall debut in 2007, the orchestra has appeared on tour in the United States and Canada, and in several performances in New York City. Most recently, the ensemble was featured in "The Art and Ecstasy of the Chaconne," presented as the opening event in Gotham Early Music Scene's fifth anniversary celebration. For more information, visit www.sinfonianewyork.org.

Gotham Early Music Scene, Inc. (GEMS) is a not-for-profit corporation that enhances the quality and financial stability of participating artists and organizations by:

¨ providing administrative, marketing, financial, and other support services to professional and amateur performing groups, institutions, presenters, and other organizations interested in early music;
¨ securing paid touring engagements throughout North America for New York-based early music artists;
¨ increasing audience size and diversity by enhanced publicity and access to early music events; and
¨ educating the public and the media about early music.

Founded in 2007 by a small group of leading figures in New York musical circles to serve and promote New York's early music community, GEMS has, in this short time:

¨ presented 91 New York City ensembles in concert, including an annual fall series showcasing established and emerging artists;
¨ provided adminstrative, marketing, and logistical services to more than 144 NYC cultural organizations and artists;
¨ exhibited at 14 national arts conferences and booked 101 paid nationwide engagements for NYC musical ensembles via its GEMS Live! Agency;
¨ provided well-paid engagements under Local 802 union contracts to dozens of professional musicians;
¨ served tens of thousands of audience members (more than 1,800 of whom received free tickets);
¨ taught more than 320 children the basics of music through its S'Cool Sounds semester-long elementary school teaching programs; and
¨ helped launch several new early music initiatives, including OperaOmnia, 4x4 Baroque Concerts, Salon/Sanctuary Concerts, and Sinfonia New York.

The result of these and other efforts is the recognition by musicians, audiences, and patrons that New York has reasserted its postion as a major center of early music activity in the world.

With a budget of over $350,000, a Board of nine distinguished professionals, and a staff of six, GEMS is supported by The New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, several foundations, and a large roster of individual donors. For more information, go to www.gemsny.org.

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