TENET Vocal Artists celebrates its 10th anniversary throughout the 2018-19 season with a robust series that highlights the preëminent New York-based early music ensemble’s hallmarks: peerless vocal artistry, astute programming and a collaborative spirit that unites the group with cherished colleagues. Repertoire ranges from TENET’s signature Italian baroque, intimate English music from the time of the Tudors, and choral masterworks. In addition, TENET Vocal Artists will travel to the west coast with instrumental ensemble Quicksilver, and return to the Metropolitan Museum’s series with a site-specific performance at The Cloisters.

TENET Vocal Artists Artistic Director Jolle Greenleaf comments, “As we celebrate out TENth anniversary, TENET has elaborated on our name to become TENET Vocal Artists in order to better highlight our mission of bringing solo and chamber vocal music to our audiences. We are presenting our biggest series to date with three large-scale projects, and are tackling two major works of the baroque repertoire in un-conducted performances. In my 10th year as Artistic Director and soprano, my goal is to make clear the reality that vocalists in partnership with instrumentalists can self-create and self-present these masterworks intelligently and creatively without the need for a central conductor, as was typical during the baroque era.”

TENET Vocal Artists’ 2018-19 season opens on Friday, September 28, 2018, with Rovetta @ 350, a commemoration of the 350th anniversary of the death of Giovanni Rovetta, the composer who succeeded Claudio Monteverdi as maestro di capella at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Rovetta @ 350 features vespers selections that would have been performed at St. Mark’s during the composer’s lifetime.

The New York Times singled out TENET Vocal Artists’ April 2017 collaboration with the Sebastians of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion as “riveting … compelling … stellar.” In the 2018-19 season the ensembles re-unite for two productions: a seasonal Messiah on Wednesday and Thursday, December 19 and 20, 2018, and a Lenten-time performance of J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on Thursday and Friday, March 28 and 29, 2019. Like the St. John Passion, both works will be performed without a conductor and directed from the chamber organ by the Sebastians’ music director Jeffrey Grossman. TENET Vocal Artists’ streamlined forces – 12 singers for Messiah and 10 for the St. Matthew Passion – emphasize and enhance the connection between the individual performers and create a sense of intimacy with the audience members.

TENET Vocal Artists’ Green Mountain Project, “a treasured staple in New York” (The New York Times), also celebrates its 10th anniversary with a mini-festival that honors GMP’s regular collaborators – TENET’s celebrated singers, wind ensemble Dark Horse Consort, and members of Boston-based Blue Heron. The bookends of the GMP mini-festival are performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, on Thursday and Sunday, January 3 and 6, 2019, the work with which TENET made its indelible mark in the work’s 400th anniversary year and has performed nearly every season since. On Friday, January 4, 2019, four of TENET Vocal Artists’ female singers, supported by instrumental friends of GMP, present Behind Convent Walls, an exposition of rarely heard and surprisingly dazzling music composed and taught by women in nunneries of the Italian baroque era. Blue Heron and Dark Horse Consort join forces on Saturday, January 5, 2019, for Cantores y ministriles: Spanish Music in the Golden Age, a program exploring sacred polyphony, secular songs and rousing dances from 16th-century Spain.

On Thursday, February 7, 2019, in the recital Oh Death, Rock Me Asleep, soprano Jolle Greenleaf and mezzo-soprano Debi Wong perform Tudor-era music that weaves a tale of two seminal figures from the English Reformation, the Queens Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn.

Complimenting TENET Vocal Artists’ TENth anniversary season are collaborations with Quicksilver in San Francisco (October 12, 2018) and San Jose (October 14, 2018), performing UNO+ONE, the celebrated program documented on AVIE Records and described as “a complete success” by Gramophone magazine. Following numerous acclaimed performances at the Metropolitan Museum over recent seasons, TENET Vocal Artists appear with an international array of guest instrumentalists at the institution’s Cloisters in upper Manhattan on Saturday, November 3, 2018, for a site-specific performance of 14th-century music that was considered radically avant-garde for its time.

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For further information, image or interview requests please contact Melanne Mueller, MusicCo International, 917 907 2785, melanne@musiccointernational.com

For further information about TENET, please visit http://www.tenet.nyc  

TENET VOCAL ARTISTS TENth ANNIVERSARY SEASON 2018-2019

Friday, September 28, 2018 – 7:00 pm
Rovetta @ 350
Sacred music by Giovanni Rovetta, successor to Claudio Monteverdi as maestro di capella at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Honoring the 350th anniversary of Rovetta’s death, TENET Vocal Artists perform vespers selections that would have been heard during Rovetta’s tenure at St. Mark’s.

TENET Vocal Artists
Jolle Greenleaf, Molly Netter sopranos
Tim Keller alto
Andrew Fuchs, James Reese tenors
Anicet Castel, Paul Max Tipton basses

Instrumentalists
Tekla Cunningham, Beth Wenstrom violins
Bruce Dickey, Kiri Tollaksen cornetti
Ezra Seltzer cello
Jeffery Grossman organ/harpsichord
Charles Weaver theorbo

Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village
371 Sixth Avenue
New York, NY 10014

Wednesday, December 19, 2018 – 7:30 pm; Thursday, December 20, 2018 – 7:30 pm
George Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759) Messiah

TENET Vocal Artists
Jolle Greenleaf, Molly Quinn, Margot Rood sopranos
Doug Dodson, Helen Karloski, Elisa Sutherland altos
Stephen Sands, Aaron Sheehan, Gene Stenger tenors
Mischa Bouvier, Sumner Thompson, Charles Wesley Evans basses

In collaboration with the Sebastians, Jeffrey Grossman director

Church of St. Vincent Ferrer

869 Lexington Avenue (at East 65th Street)
New York, NY 10065  

GREEN MOUNTAIN PROJECT MINI-FESTIVAL
JANURAY 3 – 6, 2019

Thursday, January 3, 2019 – 7:30 pm; Sunday, January 6, 2019 – 2:00 pm
Claudio Monteverdi (1567 – 1643) Vespers of 1610

TENET Vocal Artists
Jolle Greenleaf, Molly Quinn sopranos
Sara Couden, Virginia Warnken Kelsey altos
Jason McStoots, James Reese, Aaron Sheehan tenors Mischa Bouvier, Steven Hrycelak, Enrico Lagasca, Sumner Thompson basses

Instrumentalists
Scott Metcalfe, Adriane Post violins
Dongymung Ahn, Daniel Elyar violas
Anne Trout violone
Emily Walhout bass violin
Alexandra Opsahl, Kiri Tollaksen cornetti
Greg Ingles, Mack Ramsey, Erik Schmalz sackbuts
Jeffery Grossman chamber organ
Hank Heijink, Daniel Swenberg theorbos

In collaboration with Dark Horse Consort, members of Blue Heron
Church of St. John Baptiste
173 East 75th Street (between Lexington and Third Avenues)
New York, NY 10021

Friday, January 4, 2019 – 7:00 pm
Behind Convent Walls
Rarely heard and surprisingly dazzling music composed and taught by women in nunneries of the Italian baroque era

TENET Vocal Artists
Jolle Greenleaf, Molly Quinn sopranos
Sara Couden, Virginia Warnken Kelsey altos
Instrumentalists Jeffery Grossman chamber organ
Hank Heijink theorbo

Kirkland Chapel at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church
7 West 55th Street
New York, NY 10019

Saturday, January 5, 2019 – 7:00 pm
Cantores y ministriles: Spanish Music in the Golden Age
Sacred polyphony, secular songs and rousing dances from 16th-century Spain

Members of Blue Heron
Scott Metcalfe director and harp
Margot Rood soprano
Jason McStoots, Aaron Sheehan tenors
Sumner Thompson bass

Members of Dark Horse Consort
Alexandra Opsahl, Kiri Tollaksen cornetti
Greg Ingles, Mack Ramsey, Erik Schmalz sackbuts
Kirkland Chapel at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church
7 West 55th Street New York, NY 10019

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Thursday, February 7, 2019 – 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm
Oh Death, Rock Me Asleep – A Lullaby for Two Queens
Tudor music that weaves a tale of two seminal figures from the English Reformation, the Queens Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn

Jolle Greenleaf, Debi Wong sopranos
Solmund Nystabakk, Charles Weaver lutes

House of the Redeemer 7 East 95th Street (between Fifth and Madison Avenues)
New York, NY 10128

Thursday, March 28, 2019 – 7:00 pm; Friday, March 29, 2019 – 7:00 pm
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) St. Matthew Passion

Jolle Greenleaf, Teresa Wakim soprano
Doug Dodson, Virginia Warnken Kelsey altos
Jason McStoots, Gene Stenger tenors
Aaron Sheehan tenor (Evangelist)
Tyler Duncan baritone (Jesus)
Sumner Thompson, Charles Wesley Evans basses

In collaboration with the Sebastians, Jeffrey Grossman director

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
346 West 20th Street (at Ninth Avenue)
New York, NY 10011 

OTHER PERFORMANCES

UNO+ONE
17th century Italian baroque music featuring music by Claudio Monteverdi

Friday, October 12, 2018
San Francisco Performances
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church
1111 O’Farrell Street
San Francisco, CA 94109

Sunday, October 14, 2018
San Jose Chamber Music Society
Trianon Theatre
72 North Fifth Street
San Jose, CA 95112

TENET Vocal Artists
Jolle Greenleaf, Molly Quinn sopranos

Instrumentalists
Robert Mealy, Julia Andrijeski violins
David Morris cello
Avi Stein harpsichord
Charles Weaver theorbo

Members of Quicksilver

Saturday, November 3, 2018 – 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm
Met LIVE Arts
Music of the ars subtilior (more subtle art) – experimental music created by a handful of renegade medieval musicians whose work was so shocking and ahead of its time that it would disappear for over half a millennium

TENET Vocal Artists
Jolle Greenleaf soprano
Virginia Warnken Kelsey alto
Jason McStoots tenor

Instrumentalists
Robert Mealy violin
Priscilla Herreid winds
Charles Weaver lute

The Met Cloisters / Fuentidueña Chapel
99 Margaret Corbin Drive
Fort Tryon Park, New York 10040