Alkemie opens our 13th season with album release shows for “A Worthy Mirror.” This project represents a time-traveling dialogue with the 12th-century trobairitz—the feminine counterpart of the poet-composers known as troubadours. Together with guest artist Amanda Gookin of Forward Music Project, we commissioned 8 female and non-binary composers to respond to and converse with the 36 extant trobairitz texts (of which we only have music for one). This body of lyric poetry represents a large group of historically female and anonymous femme voices in the literary tradition. Witty, ironic, heartbreaking, and erotic—these texts present a mirror to reflect upon what feels foreign about the past and what feels familiar, what is the role of gender and self in relationships, and how do we make space for the multiplicities of identity, both in the 12th century and today.
With
Tracy Cowart (voice, harps)
Ben Matus (voice recorders, dulcian, bagpipes)
David McCormick (vielle)
Sian Ricketts (voice, recorders, douçaines)
Niccolo Seligmann (vielle, psaltery, scheitholt, viola da gamba, triangle)
Ellie Sutherland (voice)
and guest artist
Amanda Gookin, cello
The program will be performed live in Brooklyn on November 5, 2026 at the Urbane Arts Club at 7:00 p.m.; and in Manhattan on November 6, 2026 at All Saints Episcopal Church. Both concerts will be followed by receptions with the artists. Tickets are $15-$50. For tickets and more information, please visit alkemie.org/a-worthy-mirror-album.
This album will be released on the New Focus label on November 6, 2026. Pre-order the album here.
About Alkemie
Alkemie delights in exploring and celebrating the vibrant sounds of the Medieval past. Moving freely among the worlds of court, cloister, and folk music, the ensemble brings historical traditions into conversation with the present through performances grounded equally in scholarship, curiosity, and experimentation.
Alkemie’s singer-instrumentalists perform on more than two dozen instruments, including vielles (early fiddles), harps, psaltery, scheitholt (early zither), recorders, douçaines and dulcians (early double reeds), bagpipes, and percussion. Known for its “characterful playing” (The New Yorker) and “superb ensemble skills” (Limelight), Alkemie’s performance for Indianapolis Early Music Festival was applauded for “indicating [the] future health of the field of early music.”
Since 2018, Alkemie has commissioned new works for early instruments and created projects including the dream-pop, shoegaze, and psychedelic-rock album A Fine Companion, which Early Music America praised for “skillfully transform[ing] troubadour texts into dreamily contemporary journeys.”
Based in New York City, Alkemie self-presents an annual concert series and has appeared at the Amherst Early Music Festival, Arizona Early Music Society, Berkeley Early Music Festival, Brooklyn Public Library, Cambridge Society for Early Music, Five Boroughs Music Festival, the Met Cloisters, the Morgan Library, and Music Before 1800, among others. Collaboration is central to the ensemble’s work, with partners including Chanticleer, InSeries Opera, Rose of the Compass, and TENET.
About Amanda Gookin
Praised for her “expert technical work” (The Strad), cellist Amanda Gookin “pushes Classical forward” (LA Times) and champions the future of music through the creation and bold performance of new works, and a dedication to education, culture, and community engagement.
Her initiative Forward Music Project commissions new multimedia works for solo cello that elevate stories of feminine empowerment. Her newly released album Forward Music Project 1.0 was celebrated by the NY Times as “communal joy embedded in a music of cooperation.”
Amanda was the founder and decade-long cellist of the contemporary improvising string quartet, PUBLIQuartet. In pursuit of socially-conscious programming, her GRAMMY-nominated album with PUBLIQuartet, Freedom and Faith, addressed the resilience of the female spirit throughout history.
