Alkemie: Florilegium

Artists
Program
Preview
Performances
Bios

Artists

Alkemie & Friends

Tracy Cowart (voice, harp, percussion)
Sian Ricketts (voice, douçaines, recorders)
Harrison Hintzsche (voice, percussion, melodica, guitar)
Jim Hopkins (voice, harmonium)
Ben Matus (voice, winds, lute)
Corey Shotwell (voice, melodica)

Program

Click for Printable/Viewable Program

Florilegium: Plant Strains Across the English Channel

The fruit of love
Anthony Holborne (c. 1545-c. 1602)

Des herbs ais
Thomas Crecquillon (c. 1505- c.1557)

Sweet honey sucking bees – Yet, sweet, take heed
John Wilbye (1574-1638)

The honey-suckle
Anthony Holborne (c. 1545-c. 1602)

Vignon, vignon, vignon, vignette The marie-golde
Claudin de Sermisy (c. 1490 – 1562)

The marie-golde
Anthony Holborne (c. 1545-c. 1602)

Lady, when I behold
John Wilbye (1574-1638)

Au joli bocquet
Jacobus Clemens non Papa (c. 1510-c. 1555)

Those sweet, delightful lilies
Thomas Bateson (c. 1570 – 1630)

Den hoboeken dans
Tielman Susato (c. 1510/15 – after 1570)

Adieu, sweet Amaryllis
John Wilbye (1574-1638)

The Fairie-round
Anthony Holborne (c. 1545-c. 1602)

Quis dabit capiti meo aquam?
Heinrich Isaac (c. 1450-1517)

Paradizo
Anthony Holborne (c. 1545-c. 1602)

Evermind
Ben Matus (b. 1991)

Preview

Performances

Musicivic Everywhere
Fri 7:30 PM ET June 4, 2021 (3VCP)
Sun 3:00 PM ET June 20, 2021 (Oakmont)
Wed 7:30 PM ET July 7, 2021 (Early Music Wednesdays)
Free Tickets

Three Village Chamber Players  
Sun 3:00 PM ET May 30, 2021
Fri 7:30 PM ET June 4, 2021
Free Tickets

Big Sky Musicivic
Sun 3:00 PM MT June 6, 2021
Fri 7:30 PM MT June 11, 2021
Free Tickets

Oakmont Musicivic 
Sun 3:00 PM ET June 20, 2021
Fri 7:30 PM ET July 2, 2021
Free Tickets

Ambler Musicivic
Sun 7:00 PM ET July 4, 2021
Free Tickets

Twin Forks Musicivic
Mon 7:30 pM ET July 26, 2021
Free Tickets

Bios

Alkemie exists to explore and share the life-affirming and alternative perspectives to be experienced in the sounds of centuries past. Comprised of singer-performers playing over a dozen instruments (including vielles, harps, psaltery, recorders, douçaines, and percussion), the ensemble has a particular interest in the porous boundaries between the court and folk music of the medieval period. Grounded in historical performance practice and fed by a love of experimentation, Alkemie’s performance on the Indianapolis Early Music Festival in June 2018 was lauded as “enchanting” and “indicating [the] future health” of the field of early music.”

Founded in 2013, Alkemie is based in Brooklyn and also performs nationally; since 2018 they have main- tained a partnership with the Medieval Studies program at Fordham University. In addition to hosting their own series in NYC, Alkemie has appeared at the Amherst Early Music Festival (New London, CT), Amherst Glebe Arts Response (AGAR – Amherst, VA), Beacon Hill Concert Series (Stroudsburg, PA), the Cambridge Society for Early Music (Cambridge, MA), the Capitol Early Music Series (Washington, DC), Five Boroughs Music Series (New York) Gotham Early Music Scene (GEMS – New York City), Music Before 1800 series (NYC), and the War Memorial Arts Initiative (Baltimore). This season launched “Alkemie & Friends” – a series of informal, musically experimental, and multi-sensory concerts in non- traditional NYC concert settings that explore collaborations with other experts in adjacent musical fields. This spring Alkemie filmed “Sweet Friendship,” (a program of late 15th-century French and Italian songs, dances, and poetry that includes period dancing) for the Arizona Early Music Society and Capitol Early Music series, and also premiered a new program featuring the music of Hildegard von Bingen.

Alkemie’s members are also committed to the lively teaching of medieval and Renaissance performance practice and history. Alkemie has been in residence at Fairmont State University, and has presented workshops and educational outreach programs at the Capitol Early Music Series (VA), Ramaz High School (NY), and at Fordham University (NY). Alkemie members teach collegiate and amateur students at Case Western Reserve University (OH), Fordham University (NY), the Strathmore Arts Center (MD), Amherst Early Music Festival (CT), the Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin (OH) and through the Early Music Access Project (VA).

For more information and to hear about upcoming performances, please visit alkemie.org.

Tracy Cowart (voice, gothic harp) enjoys a wide range of vocal interests, from twelfth-century polyphony to contemporary art music. Praised by the New York Times as “the real attraction” with a voice that is “light and lithe,” Tracy has performed with Apollo’s Fire, Musica Pacifica, Opera Lafayette, the Newberry Consort, Rose of the Compass, Seven Times Salt, Severall Friends, Tenet, Three Notch’d Road, the Vox Vocal Ensemble, and the Washington Bach Consort. Also known for her interpretations of new music, Tracy has performed with the Great Noise Ensemble, sung cabaret with the Richmond Festival of Music, and toured Weird Uncle, an experimental group that fuses medieval modes, jug band, and electronica. Tracy received her M.M. in Early Music from the Longy School of Music and her D.M.A. in Historical Performance Practice from Case Western Reserve University; she is faculty with the Amherst Early Music Festival, and has been a guest-artist/lecturer at Pennsylvania State University, Fairmont State University, Bucknell University, and the Society for Seventeenth Century Music. She is a proud collaborator with the Charlottesville-based Early Music Access Project, and co-directs the early music Collegium at Fordham University with Sian Ricketts. When she is not performing, she is an enthusiastic forager and member of the New York Mycological Society.

Sian Ricketts (voice, recorders, douçaines) enjoys a multi-faceted career as a singer and period woodwinds specialist. She performs medieval, Renaissance and baroque chamber music and orchestral repertoire with ensembles such as Alkemie (NY), Bach Collegium Fort Wayne (IN), Apollo’s Fire (OH), Dallas Bach Society, Piffaro (PA), Forgotten Clefs, and Labyrinth Baroque (NY). In addition to her interest in early music, Sian also regularly performs 21st-century repertoire as both an instrumentalist and singer, and has collaborated with composers such as Jonathan Dawe, Gregory Spears, Elliot Cole, and Mark Nowakowski. Sian was a Visiting Medieval Fellow at Fordham University for 2019-2020, and is also co-director of Fordham University’s Collegium ensemble. Sian holds a D. M. A. in historical performance practice from Case Western Reserve University with concentrations in voice and baroque oboe.

Guest Artists

Harrison Hintzsche is a freelance baritone and arts administrator currently based in New Haven, Connecticut. He recently received a Master’s degree from the Yale School of Music, as well as a certificate from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Harrison has enjoyed a wide variety of unique musical adventures, from singing choral music in an empty grain bin, to jazz standards accompanied by his father in a local tapas bar, to Schubert lieder in London’s Wigmore Hall. During the pandemic, he’s been thankful to explore new and old hobbies, such as cooking, reading poetry and fantasy, communing with the outdoors, and getting lost in the digital world of Zelda. He is a native of DeKalb, Illinois.

Based in Brooklyn, Jim Hopkins primarily works as an organist and, in non-pandemic times, choral conductor and educator, and is currently the Director of Music at All Saints’ Episcopal Church on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. His musical interests are wide ranging, though he has a special love for Renaissance choral music, 20th-century French music, and noisy “popular” music. Though many of his activities have been curtailed by the pandemic, he has managed to fill some of his time like everyone else in this situation: by baking sourdough bread and playing Animal Crossing. He also enjoys sailing, cycling, cooking, and nerding out about coffee, music, and Christian liturgical minutiae.

Ben Matus enjoys a varied career in music: he brings music to life regardless of whether it was written in the Middle Ages or yesterday. Based in NYC, Ben performs with many early music groups on various bassoons and dulcians along the East Coast—including Early Music New York, New York Baroque Incorporated, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, The Clarion Society, Opera Lafayette, The Handel and Haydn Society, and more. In addition to his performances in concert halls, Ben plays and sings for the Chivalrous Crickets, a band focused on the folk traditions of the British Isles, America, and their early music roots. Ben began his musical training as a boy soprano in a church choir in Bucks County, PA and continued on to receive a BM from the Eastman School of Music and a MM from the Juilliard School. His latest passion project is self-accompanying medieval songs and stories on bagpipes. In his spare time Ben can be found attending his friends’ concerts (pandemic permitting), rereading books by Tolkien, or recording birds deep in the woods.

Corey Shotwell is a tenor who can most often can be found singing music from the Renaissance and Baroque, but who has a special fondness for the 17th century. Recent concert engagements include performances at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in NYC, as well as in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Tucson. He has been a Young Artist Apprentice with Apollo’s Fire of Cleveland and the Boston Early Music Festival and one of the Virginia Best Adams Fellows with the Carmel Bach Festival. A native of West Michigan, he most recently received his M.M.A. from the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University. He received his M.M. in Vocal Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music and B.M. in Vocal Performance from Western Michigan University. He was an instructor of voice at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the College of Wooster, and Cleveland State University. When not indulging in music- related activities, he enjoys hiking, petting cats, and brewing coffee.

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