Lionheart

LIONHEART is one of America’s leading ensembles in vocal chamber music. Acclaimed for its "smoothly blended and impeccably balanced sound" (Allan Kozinn, The New York Times), Lionheart (Jeffrey Johnson, Lawrence Lipnik, John Olund, Richard Porterfield, Kurt-Owen Richards, and Michael Wenger) is best known for its interpretation of medieval and Renaissance a cappella music, with Gregorian chant as the keystone of its repertoire. The ensemble also collaborates with instrumental ensembles, dance companies, and contemporary composers.

Last season included several important performances for Lionheart, including the Aspen Music Festival, Virginia Arts Festival, Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, a return to the distinguished Music Before 1800 concert series in New York, and an appearance at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall as part of cellist Maya Beiser’s performance of Brett Dean’s Sparge la morte, based on a Carlo Gesualdo madrigal. The 2006–07 season also brought the group to the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden for the world premiere of Phil Kline’s John the Revelator, written for Lionheart; the concert was broadcast on John Schaefer’s New Sounds Live on WNYC and is due for a CD release in early 2008.

For its most recent recording on Koch International Classics, El Siglo de Oro, Lionheart was hailed by Early Music America for their “rich, true tones and flawlessly blended harmonies…their superb articulation and impeccable sense of rhythm.” The ensemble’s CD of the music of Palestrina and his contemporaries and its CD, Tydings Trew, also garnered much critical praise and were released by Koch International Classics. Lionheart also released two CDs on the Nimbus label: MyFayre Ladye: Tudor Songs and Chant (1997) and Paris 1200: Chant and Polyphony from 12th Century France (1998). Lionheart is heard on Sony Music’s CD companion to A History of Western Music, and on NPR’s Christmas Around the Country II, a collection of favorites from NPR’s Performance Today. A new CD of Spanish repertoire premiered last fall. On radio, it has been featured on Performance Today, PRI’s Harmonia, WGBH, and the ensemble appears regularly on WNYC radio in New York. Lionheart has also received significant air-play on Radio Shanghai, which broadcasts Western music to a wide audience in China.

In 1998 the six men of Lionheart began a collaboration with Anonymous 4, joining forces to explore rare and ravishing repertoire. They did two national tours together, the last being in the 2001–02 season. In December 2000 Lionheart furthered its commitment to presenting the work of living composers by premiering a new piece by composer Julia Wolfe as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. In the spring of 2003 it gave the world premiere of a new work composed for it and members of the Orchestre de Paris by composer Marc-André Dalbavie. The performance, which took place at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, was part of the Sounds French Festival. The ensemble gave the French premiere at the Présence Festival in Paris in February 2005.

In New York City Lionheart performs regularly at the Cloisters and is ensemble in residence at Saint Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church. Lionheart has also appeared at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Lincoln Center, on the Music Before 1800 series, and at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall (in collaboration with composer Steve Reich). Out-of town venues include the Kennedy Center, National Cathedral, and Folger Library in Washington, D.C.; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Friends of Chamber Music series in Kansas City; and the campuses of Stanford, UCLA, and Yale University. In Europe the ensemble has participated in festivals including Musikpodium in Stuttgart, Tage Alter Musik in Regensburg, and the Covent Garden Festival in London.