FRIENDS OF LITURGICAL MUSIC

ANONYMOUS 4 TO PERFORM AT CORPUS CHRISTI CHURCH

Anonymous 4 will perform a concert at Corpus Christi Church on Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. The women of the legendary vocal quartet will offer a dual program, “A Medieval Ladymass: British Chant and Polyphony,” along with a sneak preview from their upcoming CD, The Cherry Tree, to be released in the fall of 2009. The concert is sponsored by The Friends of Liturgical Music at Corpus Christi, a group whose sole purpose is to fund the church’s professional choir. Tickets are $100, $50, $40 and $30, and will go on sale on January 15. The box

office phone is 212.666.9266; the web address is www.corpus-christi-nyc.org/Friends.htm. Corpus Christi Church may be reached on the #1 train to 116th Street or on the M104 or M4 buses.

Anonymous 4’s Ruth Cunningham, Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer and Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek are famous for their exquisitely blended singing in programs that combine music, poetry, and narrative. In addition to performing medieval music, the many-faceted ensemble has premiered contemporary pieces by Peter Maxwell Davies, John Tavener, Steve Reich, and Richard Einhorn, and it has expanded its repertory to embrace traditional music of the British Isles and America. Anonymous 4 has performed in major venues and festivals throughout North America, Europe, and the Far East, as well as appearing on numerous radio and television programs. “The women ... sing so beautifully, you want to call them angelic. But that would be a mistake, of course, because these singers wrap all their notes in way too much human emotion” Omaha World Herald. Award-winning CDs on harmonia mundi have attained unprecedented popularity; almost 1.5 million copies have been sold worldwide. Most of the concert features a Ladymass—a votive Mass in Mary’s honor. Ladymasses were celebrated weekly or daily throughout medieval Europe; the British, especially, were fanatically devoted to Mary and wrote much music to embellish her liturgy. For this program, Anonymous 4 has created a composite Mass of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century English chant and polyphony taken from An English Ladymass and Lammas Ladymass, two of its most admired recordings. The movements include an Introit, Gloria, Offertory, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei, Communion, and Ite missa est, interspersed with chant and motets. Anonymous 4 will perform three pieces from the unreleased CD,

The Cherry Tree, including Bethlehem, Williams Billings’s exhilarating four-part fuging tune.