Parthenia Viol Consort to Present Tomb Sonnets - A Concert Of Poetry And Music At Saint John's In The Village Church

Parthenia, New York's premiere viol consort, will present Tomb Sonnets - A Concert of Poetry and Music on Saturday, February 24 @ 4:00 PM at Saint John's in the Village Church, 218 W. 11th Street in Manhattan.

This will be a program of poetry and music, inseparable as in the Elizabethan world, with poetry conceived as song and music taking form and phrasing from poetry.

Parthenia, joined by actor Jonathan Richards and vocalist Ryland Angel, will intersperse dramatic readings spanning seven centuries among Renaissance and contemporary music for viol consort and voice. The program will feature works by composer Martin Kennedy, including his song cycle, Tomb Sonnets, and the premiere of Kontakion for viol consort and tenor. Through music and verse, with poems by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) and others, the enduring themes of longing, loss and memory will be explored.

Jonathan Richards is an author, journalist, actor, and political cartoonist. He is a founding member of the New Mexico Actors Lab, a theater company based in Santa Fe, NM, where he has appeared regularly in leading roles. He has appeared as William Shakespeare in his own play Ever the Twain: William Shakespeare in Mark Twain's America, in Santa Fe and New York, and as "Nasrrator with Severall Friends" in Shadow of Night, in Santa Fe and Houston. Film includes Independence Day: Resurgence, Alan Arkin's Blood: Thinner than Water, and narration of the Oscar-nominated documentary Never Give Up. TV includes Breaking Bad and Manhattan.

Grammy-nominated British vocalist Ryland Angel has built an international reputation on both the opera and concert stage, in repertoire ranging from the Baroque to new operatic commissions at major opera houses, concert halls and festivals throughout Europe and the USA. He has performed in Monteverdi's Orfeo, Gavin Bryars's Doctor Ox's Experiment (English National Opera), Fairy Queen (Barcelona), Gluck's Orfeo (Koblenz), Amadigi (Karlsruhe), Venus and Adonis (Flanders Opera), Dido and Aeneas (Opera Comique), The Play of Daniel (Spoleto), and Ballet Comique de La Royne (Geneva). Angel has sung on over 80 recordings. He has previously performed several times with Parthenia, including a recital at the National Gallery.

Tickets for February 24 are $10 to $40, available at https://ci.ovationtix.com/35560/performance/11356850. Join the artists after the program for Cocktails from the Crypt.

This event is ADA accessible. For MTA transportation information, visit https://new.mta.info/tripplanner/results. Additional Parthenia concert information will be available throughout the year at https://parthenia.org/performances/.

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.