For the New York City version of the concert, Garald worked with tenor Christopher Preston-Thompson and soprano Tiffany Bizup once again, joined by lovely mezzo Julia Mintzer.

This set of talents brought new musical opportunities to the repertoire. Remember in our Boston Early Music Festival post, we told you that Christopher had taken an interest in the early harp? Well, the NYC concert was his first public performance as a harpist! He wrote his own harp arrangement for his solo Veni, veni Emmanuel and added harp accompaniment to Garald’s lute for several other songs. Tiffany Bizup was inspired to break out her flute and added flute obbligato to Patapan and other carols. The fuller instrumental sound provided a lovely contrast to our usual a cappella and lute/vocal arrangements. We hope we can continue to spice up our performances with new instrumental additions from time to time.
continue reading "Recap: ‘A Pennyworth of Christmas’ in NYC, Dec. 17, 2011"

Well, we’re back from the tour now and planning for upcoming seasons. We’d like to thank all of our host venues and homestay families. Thank you for the beds, the wonderful food, the local impromptu neighborhood tours and parties. Your generosity and graciousness made our visits to your communities very special.

Our tour has already garnered us one new booking and invitations to return everywhere we played. At the Lute Society seminar, many people told us after  our performance to  “keep going with this — you’ve got something really special here.” One grad student told us “I’ve been studying lute songs for two years and I’m so excited to see this! You’ve expanded my view of what lute song performance can be.” If you attended one of our concerts and would like to give us feedback, please send us an email via the Contact page.

As for future plans, we’re contacting local and regional presenters to continue to spread “the Shakespeare” as far and wide as possible. We’ll also be adding music to our annual holiday program and starting work on a new program of traditional ballads and folk songs.

In her other life, Erika Lloyd is lead singer and main songwriter for the indie rock/alt jazz band Little Grey Girlfriend. The Grammy award-winning choral ensemble, Chanticleer, is going to be performing Erika’s song “Cells Planets” on their world tour! And the NYTimes wrote about it! (10th paragraph down) Congratulations, Erika! Here’s a link to the NYTimes article.

Arts – Embracing the Renaissance and YouTube, Too – NYTimes.com

The all-male Bay Area chorus Chanticleer is gently shifting its direction under Matthew Oltman, who became the group’s new music director last July… Mr. Oltman still honors Chanticleer’s past; for example, he remains passionate about Renaissance music. This week Chanticleer performs a series of concerts featuring music by 16th- and 17th-century English composers like Thomas Tallis, William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons. Mr. Oltman also intends to continue commissioning new works, especially by young composers and arrangers like Vince Peterson. He is arranging “Cells Planets,” by the New York indie rock band Little Grey Girlfriend, for the ensemble’s tour next season.

(And here’s more info on Little Grey Girlfriend: http://littlegreygirlfriend.com/)

Our new album “Love! Lust! Longing… Loss – An Elizabethan Romp” is now available! Just in time for Holiday gift giving. You may download it right now for $9.99 at www.DigStation.com/TheGoodPennyworths.  (We like DigStation — we keep 100% of the proceeds, which is very helpful for a not-for-profit organization like ours!) The CD features ballads and lute songs from our popular concert of the same name, with selections by John Dowland, Thomas Campion, Philip Rosseter, Thomas Morley and many other Elizabethan-era composers. We’ll be selling CDs after our holiday concert on Dec. 19th, of course. CDs and downloads are also available on iTunes, Amazon, cdbaby.com, and other online music retailers. All net proceeds from the sales of CDs go directly back into the organization to support new concerts and touring initiatives. Buy one for yourself and one for a friend!

Scroll down for details about the Saturday, December 19th concert in NYC.