We’re pleased to announce our newest concert program, Love Is But A Jest… Songs for Fools & Lovers, premiering June 9, 2012 (8PM) at our home venue, Advent Lutheran Church, W93rd & Broadway in Manhattan. Performing are (L to R) Garald Farnham (baritone, lutes), Jacquelyn A. Penfold (soprano), Kirsten Kane (mezzo) and Christopher Preston Thompson (tenor, gothic harp).

This Spring, we’ve been assembling songs that deal with the silly and sublime natures of love, a subject mused on by serious composers from many musical eras. If you’ve ever acted the fool to impress someone, or felt the fool when you haven’t, you know why composers can’t resist such rich themes. This collection of musical jests features music by Dowland, Purcell, Mozart, Moulinié, Bataille, Boesset, Rossini, Billings, Hopkinson, Billy Taylor, Stephen Sondheim and Simon & Garfunkel, with fresh arrangements for various combinations of lute, gothic harp and voice.

We’re also thrilled to be premiering our first commissioned work, “A Perfect Strain,” with music by NYC-based jazz composer and pianist Jordan Clawson, set to lyrics by 19th century poet Isabella Valancy Crawford. Jordan has written a truly breath-taking new piece for two voices and lute.

Our Western NY and Midwestern fans can join us for one of our upcoming June tour dates, featuring return performances at Early Music in Columbus, the Lute Society of America, the Chautauqua Institution and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Toledo. We’ll also be presenting a Master Class before our evening concert at the Chautauqua Institution on Sunday, June 17. Here’s the itinerary! You may check the Dates page for full concert details and venues.

Sat, June 16 (7:30 pm) – Friends of Music, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Sun, June 17 (3:00 pm) – Singing to the Lute Master Class, Hurlbut Memorial Church, Chautauqua Institution, NY
Sun, June 17 (6:30 pm) – Fletcher Music Hall, Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY
Mon, June 18 (7:30 pm) – Starkweather Arts Center, Romeo, MI
Tue, June 19 (7:00 pm) – Trinity English Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, IN
Wed, June 20 (7:00 pm) – Fine Arts Foundation of the Westby Area, Westby, WI
Thu, June 21 (7:30 pm) – Immanuel Lutheran Church, Rock Falls, IL
Fri, June 22 (7:30 pm) – St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church, Monona, WI (near Madison)
Sat, June 23 (7:00 pm) – St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Toledo, OH
Sun, June 24 (3:30 pm) – Lute Society of America Biennial Lute Seminar Concert Series, Case Western Reserve, Cleveland, OH
Fri, June 29 (7:30 pm) – Early Music in Columbus Summer Series, Capital University, Columbus, OH
Sun, July 1 (4:00 pm) – Christ Lutheran Church, Athens, OH

We hope to see you on the road or here at home in NYC! Send us an email and tell us what you think!

Our short tour to upstate NY last week (April 28-29) to perform Love, Lust, Longing, Loss in Rochester (Fairport) and Elmira brought a great turnout, and the pleasure of reconnecting with many friends. With our tenor’s superb navigation skills and our lutenist’s laughing company, we made the eight-hour drive along with two lutes, music books, costumes, our soprano’s gourment vegan cupcakes, bread and wine for the reception.

We are so thankful to the congregations of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Fairport, and First Presbyterian Church in Elmira, our wonderfully inspiring hosts!

Tim Joyce, Kirsten Kane, Laura Campbell and Garald Farnham perform at the Bayport-Blue Point Public Library (03.04.2012)

Warmest thanks to all those who came out to hear us at Bayport-Blue Point Public Library on Sunday! The revival of our Love! Lust! Longing… Loss program was received with laughter and sighs, and we were thrilled to discover that one listener sketched us prodigiously while we sang. We’re taking it to Upstate New York later in April!

Please join us on Sunday, March 4 at 2pm, for “Love, Lust, Longing… Loss – an Elizabethan Romp” at the Bayport-Blue Point Public Library!

“Love, Lust, Longing… Loss” has proven popular with audiences of all kinds, from those who know every John Dowland song by heart to those who have yet to dip a toe into this amazing repertoire. You will come away with a sense of the richness and range of popular music during the Renaissance – from bawdy tales of soldiers and wenches to heartfelt love songs to tongue-in-cheek lovelorn laments and political satires. This performance will surprise lute song enthusiasts with fresh interpretations of more “well-traveled” songs, and delight them with rarely-performed gems.

We’ll be reprising the Good Pennyworths’ first concert program with soprano Laura Campbell, mezzo Kirsten Kane and tenor Timothy Joyce, with baritone Garald Farnham on lutes.  Details can be found on our Dates page and on the Library’s homepage.

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"

L to R: Tim Joyce, Erika Buchholz, Kirsten Kane, Garald Farnham

When one door closes, another opens! This past fall, instead of touring our Shakespeare concert to DC, Virginia and Maryland in November, as we’d planned, Garald found himself rehearsing two different versions of our annual celebration of carols and wassail songs, A Pennyworth of Christmas, with two different sets of singers — one for a four-concert tour to the Midwest, and one for our NYC performance! (As fate would have it, none of the singers who went on the tour could sing the New York City concert on December 17th, and none of the singers who could do the NYC concert were available for the tour! Our singers are in demand!) The silver lining: We got an opportunity to work with a number of wonderful new singers and shaped each concert according to their individual talents.
continue reading "Recap: First-ever Tour of ‘A Pennyworth of Christmas’ – Dec. 2011"

Goodness! We didn’t mean to leave you hanging. We’ve been up to a lot since June 2011! It’s been a year of changes, with new faces joining our roster of singers while familiar faces took time off to pursue professional goals of their own. (See our About page for info on some of the singers we’ve worked with this past year.) With both Alane Marco and Erika Lloyd taking leave, our web presence has been fairly quiet of late. But we’re happy to announce that mezzo Kirsten Kane will be picking up the blogging mantle, and Alane Marco will once again help us out behind the scenes with occasional writing, marketing and design work.

Let’s bring you up to date! Off we go to Boston to fill you in on the Good Pennyworths’ second appearance at the Boston Early Music Festival… We know you’re dying to hear how it went! [More after the break…]
continue reading "Recap – Boston Early Music Festival Tour – June 16-19, 2011"

Set 5 – “Down! Thou Climbing Sorrow” The Lute Society of America’s video excerpted from our presentation of Songs From Shakespeare: True Love Never Did Run Smooth at the June 2010 Lute Festival at Case Western Reserve University. Featuring Garald Farnham, Alane Marco, Christopher Preston Thompson, Erika Lloyd. Stage direction and text adaptation by Katherine Harte-DeCoux. Songs: “Take, o take those lips away” (Measure for Measure); “Blow, blow thou winter wind” (As You Like It); “And will he not come again” (Hamlet); “Full fathom five” (Tempest); “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun” (Cymbeline)

We will be doing an interview and a bit of singing on University of Connecticut Radio this afternoon. It’s a live broadcast, but you can listen to it on their online stream any time!  www.whus.org