Upcoming meeting
SATURDAY, MARCH 8, AT 1:30 PM
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​NYRG welcomes back Dr. David Hurd, Organist and Music Director at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, to lead our March session. Dr. Hurd is widely recognized as one of the foremost church musicians and concert organists in the country, with a long list of awards, prizes, honors and achievements to his credit. From 1976 to 2016, he worked at The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York City, first as Director of Chapel Music and later also as Professor of Church Music and Organist.
Recent meetings
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, AT 1:30 PM
"Transformative Journeys of New Hope in New Worlds: Homage to Immigrant Composers" led by Deborah Booth
We will explore music by Guillaume Dufay and Cipriano de Rore as well as the pieces we have been working on throughout the year by Stonings, Bach, and Lully. We will begin with a plaintive rondeau by Dufay mourning the loss of places and people as travelers leave their home region or country to find new homes. Then we will play a madrigal by de Rore who was born in Belgium but traveled to Italy, as did many other Franco-Flemish composers after Josquin, bringing the polyphonic Netherlandish musical style to Italy and learning the Italian styles of madrigals and instrumental canzonas. If time permits we will end the session with folk tunes from South and Central America honoring today’s immigrants in light of their worsening struggles due to present government repression.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, AT 1:30 PM
"A Starry, Sacred Banquet" led by Larry Zukof
With the glorious acoustic of our playing space in mind, we will bookend this session with two sacred pieces by the extraordinary collaborative pair Thomas Tallis, nearing the end of his illustrious career, and William Byrd, in his 30s and fast becoming the Queen’s favorite. Both O sacrum convivium (O Sacred Banquet) and Siderum rector (Ruler of the Stars) come from the Cantiones sacrae (London, 1575), a publication of thirty-four sacred works by the two composers, each of whom contributed seventeen pieces celebrating the seventeenth anniversary of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Sandwiched between these two masterpieces will be a six-part instrumental Pavane and, if time allows, the Galliard by Byrd as well as a lovely new arrangement of the shape note tune Star in the East by Will Ayton.