Parthenia Viol Consort Featured In World Premiere Of UPON REFLECTION: AN OPERA IN TEN IMAGES

Parthenia, New York's premiere viol consort, will be featured in the World Premiere performances of Frances White & Wendy Steiner's Upon Reflection: An Opera in Ten Images on Saturday, May 4 @ 7:30 PM and Sunday, May 5 @ 3 PM at Mary Flagler Cary Hall of The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, 450 W. 37th Street, Manhattan.

Parthenia's commitment to performing the works of living composers continues this season with the world premiere of Upon Reflection: An Opera in Ten Images. With music by Frances White and libretto, images, and direction by Wendy Steiner, the chamber opera is a multimedia work combining soprano voice, viols, recorders, and electronic sound. The scene is a gallery opening where a young photographer is speaking to her guests about the contradictions she has felt as a woman artist. She invites them to find her image in each of ten enigmatic photos, to "see her seeing" and with her recover the "rosiness" in life she almost lost.

Parthenia, with Lawrence Lipnik playing recorders, will be joined by internationally acclaimed soprano Sherezade Panthaki.

Tickets

Tickets for May 4 and 5 are $40 and $25, available at https://ci.ovationtix.com/35560/production/1180772.

This event is ADA accessible. For MTA transportation information, visit https://new.mta.info/tripplanner/results. Additional Parthenia concert information is available throughout the year at https://parthenia.org/performances/.

About the Artists

Frances White is a composer of instrumental, vocal, and electronic music. She is particularly known for her works combining live performers and electronic sound spaces. Her music conveys intimacy and immediacy; her tactile and deeply expressive approach derives from a sincere belief in the transformative nature of sound. White studies the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute), and finds that its unique spiritual and sonic voice informs her work as a composer. Visit her at https://rosewhitemusic.com/.

Wendy Steiner, emerita Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, is an opera librettist, multimedia artist, and cultural critic. Her many acclaimed books include The Scandal of Pleasure: Art in an Age of Fundamentalism, Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-Century Art and The Beauty of Choice: On Women, Art and Freedom. She has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Rockefeller-Bellagio, and National Endowment for the Humanities. Read a Gotham Early Music Scene interview with her at https://www.gemsny.org/66-articles-of-interest/994-artist-spotlight-upon-reflection.

Sherezade Panthaki, soprano, has recently performed early music and oratorio with the New York Philharmonic, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Bach Collegium Japan, Wiener Akademie (Austria), NDR Hannover Radiophilharmonie (Germany), the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Early Music Festival, and the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra (Canada). She is a founding member of the Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble and has been featured in their performances and educational programs of early and new music. She has taught voice at Yale University, and currently heads the Vocal program at Mount Holyoke College. More about her at http://www.sherezadepanthaki.com/.

About Parthenia

Parthenia is a consort of viols dedicated to both early and contemporary music. Parthenia has performed in concerts and festivals across America including Bargemusic, Music Before 1800, Maverick Concerts, The Rockport Chamber Music Festival, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Miller Theatre and the Yale Center for British Art, and in Europe at the Regensburg Tage Alter Musik. The ensemble produces its own concert series in NYC, collaborating regularly with the world's foremost early music specialists including Piffaro, Julianne Baird, Paul O'Dette, Blue Heron and ARTEK. Parthenia actively commissions and premieres works by today's composers including Eleonor Sandresky, Richard Einhorn, Phil Kline, Frances White, Max Lifchitz, Will Ayton, Nicholas Patterson and Kristin Norderval. Parthenia's latest CD Nothing Proved, on the MSR Classics label, features music by Hildegard von Bingen, Frances White, Kristin Norderval, and Tawnie Olson. The consort is represented by Shirley Hunt, GEMS Live! Director of Booking and Artist Representation.

Parthenia's members are Beverly Au, Lawrence Lipnik, Rosamund Morley and Lisa Terry. Visit them at http://www.parthenia.org. They are currently the Early Music Ensemble in Residence at Stern College for Women.

Parthenia's concert season is made possible by the New York State Council for the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Parthenia is a sponsored organization of the New York Foundation for the Arts, and is a member of Early Music America and Chamber Music America.