The preëminent New York-based early music ensemble TENET announces its 2016-17 season, a series of five performances spanning repertoire from the 14th to the 18th centuries including numerous capstones of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque eras. Highlights of TENET’s 2016-17 season include a three-concert exploration of the music of Guillaume de Machaut and his contemporaries under guest music director Scott Metcalf; a collaboration with ensemble the Sebastians for J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion, featuring Grammy Award-winning tenor Aaron Sheehan as the Evangelist; and the return of the Green Mountain Project’s presentation of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610. In addition, TENET will return to Carnegie Hall on two occasions, as well as to Saint Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue for a Lenten performance of Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories.

Of TENET’s 2016-17 season, Artistic Director Jolle Greenleaf remarks, “What a year ahead! We will continue our exploration of medieval music – a repertoire I feel is under-represented in New York City. I look forward to gathering our international cast of all-star performers for this year’s Green Mountain Project in December and trust it will be an incredible way to kick off the holiday season. But perhaps our biggest undertaking of the season will be our conducter-less performance of J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion. I can’t wait to share this experience with our audience!”

Throughout its 2016-17 season, TENET will explore the music of medieval France in a three-part series curated by guest music director Scott Metcalfe under the banner The Cycle of Invention: Guillaume de Machaut and the 14th century. Building on last season’s acclaimed series The Sounds of Time which traversed avant-garde French music of the 14th to the 16th centuries, The Cycle of Invention travels further back in time and focuses on the work of Machaut, the era’s leading master of music and poetry. Machuat grounded his art on the achievements of his predecessors, including the courtly songs of the 13th-century troubadors and trouvères and the developments of Philippe de Vitry to whom the Ars nova treatise is attributed. Machaut is credited with inventing the genres of polyphonic song that would remain in use until the end of the 15th century. The three programs of The Cycle of Invention, which will each be performed twice in an evening at the Tenri Cultural Institute, will offer a rich selection of Machaut’s work, from motets to monophonic dances to polyphonic ballades and rondeaus, alongside the music of his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors.

Throughout The Cycle of Invention, TENET will apply 14th century performance practices, lending distinct colors to the palette of medieval sound. Singers will employ French period pronunciation, the distinctive vowels, rhythms, and melodies manipulating the 14th-century sound world. Instruments will mirror what is known of those used in the 14th century – fiddles with gut strings, highly curved bows made of European wood, bray harps, lutes played with plectrums, medieval-style recorders, and the double reed douçaine.

TENET’s 2016-17 season opens on September 30, 2016 with the first in its series The Cycle of Invention. The New Art juxtaposes music of Machaut with his immediate predecessors Adam de la Halle and Jehan de Lescurel, and selections from the satirical romance Roman de Fauvel and the Ars nova. The program features some of Machaut’s earliest monophonic virelais and secular motets.

On December 2 and 3, 2016, TENET’s Green Mountain Project returns with its celebrated Vespers of 1610 by Claudio Monteverdi. Since its first outing in the seminal work’s 400th anniversary year, GMP’s Vespers has become “a treasured staple in New York” (The New York Times). This season’s performances feature an international cast under music director Scott Metcalfe with the brass ensemble Dark Horse Consort, and take place at St. Jean Baptiste Catholic Church on the Upper East Side.

The second concert of TENET’s 2016-17 series The Cycle of Invention takes place on January 13, 2017. Le noble rhetouryque – a moniker bestowed upon Machaut by Eustache Deschamps which translates as “the noble rhetorician” – focuses on the composer’s new formes fixes for poetry and music: the ballade, rondeau and virelai. The program features works written for one of Machaut’s most significant muses, the important 14th century patron of the arts Bonne of Luxembourg, including selections from the long narrative poem Remede de Fortune, and a motet which was likely composed in her memory.

A major undertaking of TENET’s 2016-17 season is the Lenten presentation of J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion, a collaboration with up-and-coming early music ensemble the Sebastians and their music director Jeffrey Grossman which will take place on March 23 and 25, 2017 at the German Lutheran Church of St. Paul in Chelsea. Grammy Award-winning and frequent TENET soloist tenor Aaron Sheehan takes the role of the Evangelist. The performances will be conductor-less, emphasizing and enhancing the connection between the individual performers as well as audience members. TENET will also perform the St. John Passion on the “Bach at 415” series at St. Barnabas Church in Greenwich, Connecticut on March 26, 2017.

TENET’s 2016-17 season comes to a close on May 5, 2017 with the final installment of The Cycle of Invention. The Next Generation features two of Machaut’s substantial collections of the ars subtilior (“more subtle art”), including music in the Codex Chantilly and the manuscript known as “ModA” (Modena, Biblioteca Estense, alpha-M.5.24). The program also presents works by the younger generation represented in the same sources, including Jacob de Senleches, Solage, Philipoctus de Caserta and Baude Cordier.

Supplementing its regular 2016-17 season, TENET performs a Lenten Meditation of Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories on April 11, 2017 at Saint Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue with improvisations by the church’s new music director Daniel Hyde. Gesualdo’s harmonically bold setting of the Passion story has played a regular role in TENET’s repertoire in recent years, given performances that are “adventurous and expressive” (The New York Times).

In addition, TENET returns to Carnegie Hall twice during the 2016-17 season. As part of Carnegie’s festival La Serenissima: Music and Arts from The Venetian Republic, on February 7, 2017, TENET will join the Venice Baroque Orchestra in Stern Auditorium for a performance of Vivaldi’s colorful oratorio Juditha triumphans. On February 17, 2017, in Weill Recital Hall, three of TENET’s leading ladies – sopranos Jolle Greenleaf and Molly Quinn, and mezzo-soprano Virginia Warnken – will headline The Secret Lover, a celebration of music by, for, and about women that pays tribute to the 17th century Concerto delle donne, the ensemble of extraordinarily gifted professional female singers who were renowned for their performances in the courts of the late Italian Renaissance. The Secret Lover showcases TENET’s recent release of the same name on AVIE Records, “a programme that has all the intimacy and seductive charm of the drawing room” (Gramophone).

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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 Cycle of Invention: Guillaume de Machaut and the 14th century – The New Art
Friday, September 30, 2016 – 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm
Music from the late 13th century to the Roman de Fauvel (1316), the Ars nova of Philippe de Vitry (c. 1322) and the music of Guillaume Machaut
TENET
Scott Metcalfe vielle and guest music director
Jolle Greenleaf soprano
Luthien Brackett alto
Jason McStoots and Owen McIntosh tenors
Debra Nagy winds
Charles Weaver medieval lute

Tenri Cultural Institute
43A West 13th Street
New York, NY 10011

Claudio Monteverdi Vespers of 1610
Friday, December 2, 2016 – 7:30pm
Saturday, December 3, 2016 – 7:30pm
TENET’s Green Mountain Project with Dark Horse Consort
Jolle Greenleaf artistic director and Scott Metcalfe music director
Jolle Greenleaf and Molly Quinn sopranos
Laura Pudwell mezzo soprano
Owen McIntosh, Jason McStoots, Colin Balzer, Aaron Sheehan and Sumner Thompson tenors
Mischa Bouvier, Steve Hrycelak and John Taylor Ward basses
Scott Metcalfe and Ingrid Matthews violins
Dongmyung Ahn and Daniel Elyar violas
Emily Walhout bass violin
Anne Trout violone
Hank Heijink, Daniel Swenberg and Charles Weaver theorbos
Jeffrey Grossman chamber organ
Dark Horse Consort brass ensemble

St. Jean Baptiste Catholic Church
184 East 76th Street
New York, NY 10021

The Cycle of Invention: Guillaume de Machaut and the 14th century – Le noble rhetouryque
Friday, January 13, 2017 – 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm
Machaut and the creation of the new formes fixes for poetry and music
TENET
Scott Metcalfe vielle and guest music director
Jolle Greenleaf soprano
Jason McStoots and Owen McIntosh tenors
Priscilla Herreid winds
Charles Weaver medieval lute
Tenri Cultural Institute
43A West 13th Street
New York, NY 10011

Antonio Vivaldi Juditha triumphans
Tuesday, February 7, 2017 – 7:00 pm
TENET with Venice Baroque Orchestra and Soloists

Carnegie Hall – Stern Auditorium
57th Street and Seventh Avenue
New York, NY 10019

The Secret Lover: Music by, for and about Women in 17th Century Italy
Friday, February 17, 2017 – 7:30 pm
TENET
Jolle Greenleaf soprano and artistic director
Molly Quinn soprano
Virginia Warnken mezzo-soprano
Emily Walhout viola da gamba
Hank Heijink and Charles Weaver theorbos and baroque guitars
Jeffrey Grossman harpsichord

Carnegie Hall – Weill Recital Hall
57th Street and Seventh Avenue
New York, NY 10019

J. S. Bach St. John Passion
Thursday, March 23, 2017 – 7:00 pm
Saturday, March 25, 2017 – 7:00 pm
TENET and the Sebastians
Jolle Greenleaf artistic director
Jeffrey Grossman music director
Aaron Sheehan Evangelist
Jolle Greenleaf and Molly Quinn sopranos
Luthien Brackett and Reginald Mobley altos
Owen McIntosh and Jason McStoots tenors
Mischa Bouvier and Sumner Thompson basses

German Lutheran Church of St. Paul
315 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Sunday, March 26, 2017 – 4:15pm

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church
954 Lake Avenue
Greenwich, CT 06831 Carlo

Gesualdo Tenebrae Responsories
Tuesday, April 11, 2017 – 6:30 pm
A selection of motets from Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday
TENET and Daniel Hyde director of Music at Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue

Saint Thomas Church
1 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019

The Cycle of Invention: Guillaume de Machaut and the 14th century – The Next Generation
Friday, May 5, 2017 – 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm
Machaut, the Ars subtilior, and the early 15th century
TENET
Scott Metcalfe vielle and guest music director
Jolle Greenleaf soprano
Jason McStoots and Owen McIntosh tenors
Debra Nagy winds
Charles Weaver medieval lute

Tenri Cultural Institute
43A West 13th Street
New York, NY 10011