A restless collective of medieval experimentalists, the Flatbush-based band Alkemie recently gained recognition beyond Brooklyn with their soundtrack for the video game Pentiment (directed by Obsidian studios and published by Xbox) and their albums a fine companion and Love to My Liking. Locally and nationally, they have been presented by the Amherst Early Music Festival, Arizona Early Music Society, Brooklyn Public Library, Cambridge Society for Early Music, the Berkeley Early Music Festival, Five Boroughs Music Festival, Johns Hopkins Program in Arts, Humanities & Health, Music Before 1800, and the European Early Music Network virtual Early Music Day festival.
VERDANT MEDICINE celebrates mystic, medic, and musician Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), a medieval polymath who expanded both Christian theology and the humoral theory of Galen to connect the viriditas (living greenness) of plants and the metaphorical viridity of spirituality directly to the human body and its functioning. Her beliefs are mirrored in the music she wrote for her community—ecstatic chants in which unfurling branches, earthbound roots, and medicinal spices are depicted in soaring melodies that swirl throughout an almost three-octave range.
This multi-media experience includes a set of hand-made intersensory cards that expand upon the music presented with quotes from Hildegard paired with physical materials featured in her mystical and medical writings.
With Tracy Cowart (voice, harps), Ben Matus (voice, bagpipes, lyre, percussion), David McCormick (vielle), Sian Ricketts (voice, winds), Niccolo Seligmann (vielles, scheitholt, psaltery), and Elisa Sutherland (voice, percussion).
This concert will be performed live in NYC at St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University on September 26 at 6 p.m. and at All Saints Episcopal Church in Manhattan on September 27 at 7:30 p.m. To reserve tickets and more information, please visit alkemie.org/events.
