Polyhymnia

Contact Information

(917) 838-4636

info@polyhymnia-nyc.org
https://polyhymnia-nyc.org

New York, New York

No Content No Content (917) 838-4636

Type of Organization

Performing Ensemble

About

Polyhymnia, recipient of Early Music America’s 2016 Outreach Grant, is a small select ensemble of singers focusing on historically informed performance of sacred music from the courts and cathedrals of the Renaissance world. The ensemble has been in residence at The Church of St. Ignatius of Antioch since 2003. 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 throughout the Northeast.

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 enlighten. 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 have 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.