Leading early music ensemble TENET continues its 2015-16 season at home in New York City with two February performances: on Friday, February 5, guest director Robert Mealy will lead the second installment of the group’s season-long focus on French medieval music; and on Saturday, February 27, Scott Metcalfe will conduct Buxtehude’s cantata Membra Jesu Nostri (“The Limbs of our Jesus”) for the ensemble’s annual TENEbrae presentation.

Throughout the 2015-16 season, TENET’s seventh under artistic director Jolle Greenleaf, the ensemble is venturing into lesser-known territory, highlighting avant-garde medieval music from 14th-, 15th- and 16th-century France under the banner The Sounds of Time. With guest director Robert Mealy, the February 5 concert at St. Luke in the Field (Hudson Street) will feature music from the ars subtilior, or “more subtle art,” an extraordinary musical development that was centered in Paris and in Avignon in the south of France at the end of the 14th century. Characterized by complex rhythms and notation, the songs – almost all secular – were sophisticated and complex, qualities that mirror TENET’s refined interpretations. Other new techniques of the ars subtilior included colored notation to indicate note values, and manuscripts in artistic shapes such as harps, hearts and maps. The performance will be repeated on Saturday, February 6, as part of the series Yale Institute of Sacred Music Presents.

Following a highly acclaimed, three-year series performing Carlo Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories during the Lenten season, this year’s TENEbrae performance, on February 27 at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, offers Dietrich Buxtehude’s extraordinary Membra Jesu Nostri (“The Limbs of our Jesus”). Under frequent guest director Scott Metcalfe, TENET will perform this vast cantata cycle which is divided into seven parts, each referring to a different part of Christ’s crucified body: feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart and head. Credited as the first Lutheran oratorio, Buxtehude’s score is striking for is transcendental beauty, weaving full forces with plentiful solos and trios. The performance will be repeated on Sunday, February 28, at St. Barnabas Church in Greenwich, Connecticut.

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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

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

The Sounds of Time: Music of the Ars Subtilior
Friday, February 5, 2016 – 7:00 pm 

St. Luke in the Field
487 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Yale University
Marquand Chapel
409 Prospect Street
New Haven, Connecticut 06511

Jolle Greenleaf soprano and artistic director

Luthien Brackett alto

Nils Neubert tenor
Andrew Padgett bass

Robert Mealy vielle
 and guest director
Shira Kammen vielle and harp

Kathryn Montoya winds

Charles Weaver lute

TENEbrae: Buxtehude Membra Jesu Nostri
Saturday, February 27, 2016 – 7:00 pm
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church
Central Park West at 65th Street
New York, NY 10023
Sunday, February 28, 2016 – 4:00 pm
St. Barnabas Church
954 Lake Avenue
Greenwich, Connecticut 06831

Jolle Greenleaf soprano and artistic director

Molly Quinn soprano

Tim Keeler countertenor

Donald Meineke tenor

Mischa Bouvier bass


Scott Metcalfe violin and guest director

Johanna Novom violin

Emily Walhout and Larry Lipnik violas da gamba
Andrew Arceci viola da gamba and violone


Hank Heijink theorbo

Jeffrey Grossman chamber organ