On-Campus this Week: New York Polyphony
The GRAMMY-nominated male classical vocal quartet, New York Polyphony, will be on campus this week, June 25th through the 29th for a retreat and to make some recordings.
Keep your eyes peeled for possible pop-up performances from this world-renowned ensemble.
New York Polyphony comprises Geoffrey Williams, countertenor; Steven Caldicott Wilson, tenor; Christopher Dylan Herbert, baritone; and Craig Phillips, bass. The ensemble’s growing discography includes two GRAMMY-nominated releases and albums that have topped the “best of” lists of The New Yorker, Gramophone, and BBC Music Magazine. In 2019, the vocal quartet released Peñalosa - Lamentationes on BIS Records. The album features rarely heard works from late 15th-century and early 16th-century Spanish composers Francisco de Peñalosa, Pedro de Escobar, and Francisco Guerrero, including world premiere recordings of Peñalosa's Lamentations and movements of his Missa L'homme arme. The end of the fifteenth century in Spain witnessed the emergence of a number of composers of outstanding ability who set the stage for the extraordinary flowering of polyphony in the following century. These works do not make regular appearances in liturgical celebrations or concert programmes, partly due to the way modern choirs are structured without the countertenor voice. Apart from this, the idea of the Spanish musical renaissance has come to mean the works of composers such as Tomas Luís de Victoria, Francisco Guerrero, and Alonso Lobo, rather than their predecessors Francisco de Peñalosa and Pedro de Escobar.
New York Polyphony seeks to continue touring post-COVID. Past performances included participating in major concert series and festivals around the world. Noteworthy engagements include debut performances at London’s Wigmore Hall and The Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, residencies at Dartmouth College and Stanford University, concerts under the aegis of the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht (Netherlands), and the European premiere of the Missa Charles Darwin—a newly commissioned secular Mass setting based on texts of Charles Darwin by composer Gregory Brown—at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. Elsewhere, New York Polyphony has performed as part of the Tage Alter Musik Regensburg; Rheingau Musik Festival, Thüringer Bachwochen (Germany); Abvlensis International Music Festival (Spain); Stiftskonzerte Oberösterreich (Austria); Festival de Música de Morelia (Mexico); and the Elora Festival (Canada), among others. They have been featured on Performance Today for American Public Media, Footprints to Paradise: A Medieval Christmas for Public Radio International, and BBC Radio 3’s In Tune. In December 2011, New York Polyphony made its national television debut on The Martha Stewart Show.