Note for Ticket holders: seating is not guaranteed after 7:25 pm, so please arrive early.

Ticket Prices:
$20 per seat, general admission
Ticket holders: Seating is not guaranteed after 7:25 pm, so please arrive early.
$35 per seat, preferred seating
$120 table for four, preferred seating
$150 table for six, preferred seating
Visit here or call 212-866-0468 to purchase an entire table.

Experience the fusion of art + revelry. Critically acclaimed Gotham Early Music Scene stages its third annual series of concerts spotlighting nine of the most exciting and innovative early music groups working in New York City today. This year the concerts move downtown to Le Poisson Rouge, the celebrated new arts cabaret in Greenwich Village that has quickly become known for attracting large audiences to new music discovery.

It is the perfect environment for our setlists of 16th- through 18th-century music, as listeners at live concerts and operas at that time ate, talked, drank, and frequently sang along with the music, with abandon. Audiences of that time would be amazed to find modern listeners seated in rows, facing forward, keeping perfectly still.

The GEMS Project strikes a perfect balance, inviting music lovers of all kinds to immerse themselves in a nightlife of true substance and vitality and an atmosphere that is at once modern and timeless. That puts you closer than ever to cutting edge groups on the scene like Ensemble Viscera, East of the River, The Four Nations Ensemble, New York Baroque Dance Company and many others.

Le Poisson Rouge evokes the salons of the past, providing a modern audience with the opportunity to revel in early music with new eyes and ears.

7:30 FLYING FORMS

Formed out of a passion for performing early chamber music, Flying Forms experiments with a broad repertoire within the chamber music genre. This young group is quickly establishing a presence in America's early music scene, collaborating with prominent musicians, musicologists and baroque dancers. Their program comprises music written for them by composers Peter Winkler (composition professor at Stony Brook University) and Nissim Schaul (composer based in Paris). Winkler’s piece, Sarabande, is an elegy on 9/11, for harpsichord, violin and cello. Based on the dance form, it is clearly newly written, but beautiful and melodic with variations showcasing each instrument. Schaul’s piece, Nuevos Misterios, is for amplified harpsichord and violin, using guitar pedals to modify the acoustic sound.

“New Music for Old Instruments”

Sarabande Peter Winkler (2006)

Nuevos Misterios Nissim Schaul (2009)

8:20 CANTORI NEW YORK

Cantori New York is an award-winning, critically acclaimed chamber chorus, noted for colorful sound, communicative performances, and daring repertoire. They will perform, a cappella, two ensaladas—colorful 15th-century Catalonian pieces featuring vocal sound effects, battle cries, and raucous exclamations.

“Two Ensaladas”

La Justa Mateo Flecha El Viego (1481 – 1663)

El Fuego

9:10 FOUR NATIONS ENSEMBLE

Founded in 1986, The Four Nations Ensemble comprises soloists who are leading exponents of period instrument and vocal performance, and has developed a leading presence on the early music scene in New York and across the country. Jean Marie Leclair, a difficult personality but “matinee idol” of the violin, wrote some of the most impressive yet sensuous music of the later French Baroque. The Ensemble is presently preparing a recording of the most impressive works for violin and a selection of glorious solo flute sonatas, many of which will be performed here.

“Matinee Idol Jean Marie Leclair”

Sonata in G for flute and continuo Jean-Marie Leclair (1703 – 07)

Sonata in C for violin and continuo

Deuxieme Recreation