Polyhymnia

An early music ensemble named for the Greek muse of spiritual song and rhetoric.

...elite group of singers....The New York Times

Next Concert
May 17, 2008
8 PM

7:15 -Pre-concert lecture
Dr. Andrew Kirkman

Music for Philip II
Compositions for the Capilla Flamenca
Pierre de Manchicourt (c.1510-1564)

Missa Reges Terrae a6
Motets: Reges terrae, Jubilate Deo, Regina Caeli
Audivi vocem, Vidi speciosam

The Church of Saint Ignatius of Antioch
552 West End Avenue
NYC
$25 General, $15 Students, Seniors, EMA
917-838-4636 - Tickets & Reservations

**2007-2008 Season**

Meet the singers

View programs and notes from our recent concerts.
March 2005, June 2005, November 2005
March 2006, May 2006, Nov 2006
March 2007, June 2007
(you will need adobe acrobat reader)

Music Sample: Kyrie, Missa Tityre, tu patulae, Jacob Vaet (c.1529-1567)

Polyhymnia is a small ensemble of singers and instrumentalists focusing on historically informed performance of sacred music from the courts and cathedrals of the Renaissance world. The singers that comprise the ensemble are drawn from many sources, including some of the finest church choirs in New York. Past and present members have sung with Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue, Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Saint Luke in the Fields and Holy Apostles. Originally artists-in-residence at Saint John’s in the Village, the ensemble moved to its current home at Saint Ignatius of Antioch in 2003, when the ensemble and its audience outgrew its original home. Currently producing three concerts a year in New York, Polyhymnia has also made a name for itself at performances in Boston as a popular entry in the Boston Early Music Festival fringe events, and has been the guest choir at a number of special events, most notably the centenary celebrations of Holy Cross Monastery, in Westpark NY.

Since 2000, director John Bradley has been creating original editions of music for the ensemble, some of it secreted in manuscript collections since the 16th-century. Working in concert with libraries, liturgical historians and institutions, Polyhymnia hopes to both preserve and reintroduce choral masterworks of the Renaissance and early Baroque in ways that both entertain and elucidate. In addition to the concert series, the ensemble’s unique relationship with Saint Ignatius of Antioch, a forerunner in the preservation of historical liturgy, provides opportunities to perform Renaissance and Baroque music in a liturgical context, while fostering musical artistry and scholarship in these interdependent disciplines.

Since its formation in 1994, Polyhymnia has amassed a vast repertoire performed in both traditional concerts as well as historical liturgical reconstructions. Mr. Bradley has reconstructed several liturgies, from Seville, Imperial Germany and Tudor England, which ahve included works by both well known composers like Lassus and Palestrina, and a wide array of unjustly neglected composers including Aston, Clemens non Papa, Crecquillon, de Rore, Fayrfax, Gombert, Porta, Vaet and Willaert.

Polyhymnia a 501 (c) 3 tax exempt organization, is ensemble in residence at
The Church of Saint Ignatius of Antioch
located at the corner of West 87th Street and West End Avenue
on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
If you would like to become a contributor, please contact us at this link and we will send you the appropriate materials.

Links to other pages of interest