This is an album comprised of a cappella hymns written by the residents of the Ephrata Cloister, an eighteenth-century celibate community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Some of the music is by the solitary sisters of Ephrata, who are the earliest known composers in America. This is the first time this music has been performed by a professional ensemble, and it was recorded in the room for which the music was originally written.
Christopher Dylan Herbert
Bright Shiny Things, 2020.
Around the world, millions of readers eagerly await the impending release of the new thriller ‘Origin’ by Dan Brown, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of ‘The Da Vinci Code.’ According to Brown, the initial spark of inspiration for his highly anticipated novel struck him when he first heard a provocative piece of classical music entitled Missa Charles Darwin — a piece composed by award-winning composer Gregory W. Brown, who also happens to be the author’s brother. The composition is featured at a crucial moment in the ‘Origin’ narrative.
New York Polyphony
Navona Records, 2017.
Sing Thee Nowell is the follow-up to the GRAMMY®-nominated CD Times Go By Turns, and earned New York Polyphony their second GRAMMY® nomination. Seven centuries of Christmas passes before the listener with new works composed for the ensemble by Michael McGlynn, Andrew Smith and John Scott alongside traditional medieval and Renaissance carols and motets by Clemens ‘non Papa’, Philippe Verdelot and Tomás Luis de Victoria. The wide-ranging sequence is anchored by Richard Rodney Bennett’s Five Carols, in which the sopranos Sarah Brailey and Elizabeth Baber Weaver augment New York Polyphony’s four voices.
New York Polyphony
BIS Records, 2014.
New York Polyphony’s first disc for acclaimed label BIS Records explores rare and never-before-recorded masterpieces of the Franco-Flemish Renaissance by composers Crecquillon, Brumel and Clemens non Papa. The program concludes with Jackson Hill’s brilliant paraphrase of Machaut’s 14th century rondeau, ‘My end is my beginning,’ commissioned by the ensemble in 2009.
endBeginning was named one of the Top Ten Notable Classical CDs of 2012 by The New Yorker and received a 10-out-of-10 rating by Classics Today.
New York Polyphony
BIS Records, 2012.
Champions of rare and rediscovered works of antiquity, New York Polyphony presents the world premiere recording of Loyset Compère’s Officium de Cruce, an elaborate, multi-movement motet cycle that rivals the masterpieces of Franco-Flemish contemporaries Pierre de la Rue and Josquin des Prez, both of whom also appear on the album. Additional works include Andrew Smith’s Salme 55, Adrian Willaert’s Pater noster– Ave Maria, and Cyrillus Kreek’s Taaveti laul 22.
New York Polyphony
BIS Records, 2021.
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 Tomás Luís de Victoria, Francisco Guerrero and Alonso Lobo rather than their illustrious predecessors Francisco de Peñalosa and Pedro de Escobar.
New York Polyphony
BIS Records, 2019.
Roma Æterna constructs a program centered on two of the greatest composers of the Renaissance: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Tomás Luis de Victoria. The Missa Papae Marcelli of Palestrina, the album’s centerpiece, is arguably one of the most celebrated works of the era. It is renowned as much for its technical brilliance as for the myth that it single-handedly rescued Western music from the ravages of papal censorship. For their performance, New York Polyphony is joined by Tim Keeler (countertenor), Andrew Fuchs (tenor) and Jonathan Woody (bass-baritone). The second half of the program continues with Victoria’s lyric but comparatively austere Missa O quam gloriosum for four voices.
New York Polyphony
BIS Records, 2016.
Times Go By Turns is the highly anticipated follow-up to New York Polyphony’s endBeginning (2012). Nominated for a GRAMMY® in the Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance category, the album features Masses by Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, as well as an enigmatic three-voice Mass setting by medieval English composer John Plummer. Three new works written for New York Polyphony by composers Gabriel Jackson, Andrew Smith, and the late Sir Richard Rodney Bennett complete the sequence.
New York Polyphony
BIS Records, 2013.
The outcome of a highly successful online Gregorian chant remix competition sponsored by Indaba Music, Devices & Desires puts a modern spin on the Medieval. Newly expanded for 2013, this experimental 11-song digital-only release features groundbreaking remixes of ‘Victimae paschali laudes’, ‘Gaudeamus in omnes Domino’, and ‘Beati mundo corde’, three of plainchant’s most celebrated melodies.
New York Polyphony
Indaba Music/Sony, 2011-2013.