Website of ensemble:
State/Province where ensemble is based:
NY
Name of performers in the ensemble and the instruments they play:
Alexander Blachly, director; All singers:
Elizabeth Baber, Michele Kennedy, Dominique Surh, Melissa Fogarty, Luthien Brackett, Silvie Jensen, Robert Isaacs, Neil Farrell, Thom Baker, Michael Steinberger, Thomas McCargar, Jeffrey Johnson, Kurt-Owen Richards, Peter Stewart
Paragraph about the ensemble:
Pomerium's primary mission is to perform and record the great a cappella polyphony of the 14th to 16th centuries. Singing from editions prepared for the ensemble by its director from original sources, Pomerium strives to achieve a vitality in performance that can help today's audiences appreciate music as the equal of the other arts of the period, with the hope that a composer such as Ockeghem might be recognized as an artist comparable in stature to Botticelli in painting or Donatello in sculpture, or that Josquin Desprez might be recognized, as he was in a treatise from 1567, as the "Michelangelo" of Renaissance music. Founded in 1972, Pomerium draws on decades of experience in presenting Renaissance choral masterpieces. One of its many reviews in the New York Times stated that the group's "unisons are impeccable, the pacing unmannered...Josquin's Virgo salutiferi sounded as dramatic as any Ride of the Valkyries.
Educational/Outreach add-ons available:
Illustrated lectures on Music from the Sistine Chapel and Mannerist Music of the Renaissance.
Titles of touring programs for 2011-12:
William Byrd (ca. 1540-1623): Catholic Composer in an Anglican Land
Mannerist Music of the Renaissance: Expression and Exaggeration by Orlando di Lasso, Giaches de Wert, and Carlo Gesualdo
Musica Vaticana, 1503-34: Musical Masterpieces from the Sistine Chapel at the Time of Michelangelo
Music for the Easter Season: Passion and Resurrection Motets of the Renaissance
Group Photo (JPEG):
Audio files:
Ensemble's touring schedule for the past three years:
Discography of the ensemble:
Additional "online press kit" materials (flyers, reviews, etc.):