PARTHENIA & LESTRANGE VIOLS

Astride Peace and War: John Jenkins, Master of the Musick Art

5BMF joins forces with two renowned viol ensembles – PARTHENIA VIOL CONSORT and LESTRANGE VIOLS – to present a multi-concert “mini-festival” celebrating the small- and large-scale works of 17th century composer John Jenkins, presented in 3 unique programs in different venues across NYC.

PROGRAM ONE: Jacobean Cabaret
May 29, 2020 | Flushing Town Hall, QUEENS

Perhaps more than any other nation, England has long embraced its native folk music; English composers have long drawn on the rich traditions of English vernacular music for fiddle, flute, harp, voice, and viol. Jenkins and his contemporaries incorporated many familiar and beloved tunes from the oral tradition into their collections of notated music, thus both preserving the original melodies and enriching the aristocratic musical traditions that relied on musical notation. “Jacobean Cabaret” explores this facet of Jenkins’ surviving work and gives us an excuse to cut loose with some rollicking tunes from the pubs and streets of Jenkins’ London.

PROGRAM TWO: Master of the Musick Art
May 31, 2020 | Christ Church Riverdale, BRONX

LeStrange Viols and Parthenia join guest performer Dongsok Shin, chamber organ, in a program showcasing Jenkins’ wide-ranging compositional styles in this presentation of virtuosic works for small ensembles of viols and organ. From the fantastic and virtuosic divisions and dance suites to the profoundly serious Fantasia-suites for three viols and organ, members of the two consorts will show off John Jenkins’ entire career – a feast for the ears!

PROGRAM THREE: Astride Peace and War
June 1, 2020 | The Church of St. Luke in the Fields, MANHATTAN

In the decades before the strife of the English Civil War (c1650), John Jenkins was among a group of English composers who produced the largest-scale instrumental works yet seen on the “musical isle.” Jenkins’ contributions include his masterful 5- and 6-part fantasias, pavanes and “In nomines” for viol consort “to the organ,” works that expand the inherited language of English polyphony with their extended compositional style and the lush sonorities of strings and organ. At the same time, Jenkins’ captured the excitement of the virtuoso Italian chamber music for strings just coming into vogue across Europe with his spritely and mellifluous writing for quartet, performed here by an energetic “chamber orchestra” of doubled viols and organ.

ARTISTS

Parthenia Viol Consort:
BEVERLY AU
LAWRENCE LIPNIK
ROSAMUND MORLEY
LISA TERRY

LeStrange Viols:
JOHN MARK ROZENDAAL
LOREN LUDWIG
DOUGLAS KELLEY
ZOE WEISS
KIVIE CAHN-LIPMAN

With guest performer:
DONGSOK CHIN › chamber organ