Parthenia Viol Consort Presents A Reliquary For William Blake Concert, May 6 At Manhattan's Church Of St. Luke In The Fields

Parthenia, New York's premiere viol consort, will present A Reliquary for William Blake, a concert on Friday, May 6 @ 7:30 PM at The Church of St. Luke in the Fields, 487 Hudson Street in Manhattan and online. The program, the third of Parthenia's 2021-22 NYC Concert Series, will also be webcast. Performers will be Parthenia Viol Consort with Cody Bowers, countertenor.

They will perform contemporary composer Will Ayton's A Reliquary for William Blake for viols and voice, based on a series of Blake's poems, including The Tyger, Garden of Love and Piping Down the Valleys Wild, along with other Ayton compositions Winter Solstice Song,

(A Meditation for Bass Viol); Thrice Tosse Those Oaken Ashes, poem by Thomas Campion; Fantasia on a Theme of Henry Purcell; selections from Songs of the British Isles and The Ballad of the Rosemary, text by Phyllis McGinley.

This collection of the music of Will Ayton represents some of his efforts to "put new wine into old bottles." The selection represents some of Ayton's passions: folk music, Elizabethan poetry, his Celtic heritage, his love of stories, his devotion to the art of polyphony, and his preoccupation with the philosophical and the spiritual. Visit the composer at https://allyonwit.com/.

Countertenor Cody Bowers is an avid performer on the concert stage and has been featured as an ensemble singer and soloist in the United States, North America and Europe, and has performed with Parthenia, Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Camerata, Bach Akademie Charlotte, Bach Society Houston, The Henry Purcell Society of Boston, VAE: Cincinnati's premier choral ensemble, Collegium Cincinnati, The Choir of The Church of the Advent, and Ensemble Altera. More about him at https://codybowerscountertenor.com/.

In person performance tickets are $25 and webcast tickets are $10. Both can be ordered at https://parthenia.org/shop/a-reliquary-for-william-blake-concert-may-6-2022-730pm/. All in-person concert-goers will also receive a link to view the archived webcast performance.

Please review Parthenia's COVID-19 protocols for live concert attendance.

For more information, contact Parthenia at https://parthenia.org/contact/.

Parthenia is a quartet of viols which animates ancient and contemporary music. Parthenia is presented in concerts and festivals across America including Bargemusic, Music Before 1800, Maverick Concerts, The Rockport Chamber Music Festival, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Miller Theatre and the Yale Center for British Art, and in Europe at the Regensburg Tage Alter Musik. The ensemble produces its own concert series in NYC, collaborating regularly with the world's foremost early music specialists including Piffaro, Julianne Baird, Paul O'Dette, Blue Heron and ARTEK. Parthenia actively commissions and premieres works by today's composers including Eleonor Sandresky, Richard Einhorn, Phil Kline, Frances White, Max Lifchitz, Will Ayton, Nicholas Patterson and Kristin Norderval. Parthenia's latest CD Nothing Proved, on the MSR Classics label, features music by Hildegard von Bingen, Frances White, Kristin Norderval, and Tawnie Olson. They are represented by Shirley Hunt, GEMS Live! Director of Booking and Artist Representation.

Parthenia is Beverly Au, Lawrence Lipnik, Rosamund Morley and Lisa Terry. Visit them at http://www.parthenia.org. They are the Early Music Ensemble in Residence at Stern College for Women

Parthenia's concert season is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Parthenia is a sponsored organization of the New York Foundation for the Arts, and is a member of Early Music America and Chamber Music America.