Upcoming meetings
Save these Saturdays for our 2022–23 season of in-person meetings!
September 17 led by Daphna Mor
October 29 led by Patricia Neely
November 12 led by Deborah Booth
December 17 led by David Hurd
January 21 led by Larry Zukof
February 11 led by Deborah Booth
March 18 led by Wendy Powers
April 15 led by Valerie Horst
May 20 led by Susan Hellauer
Recent meetings
SATURDAY, MARCH 18 AT 1:30 PM
NYRG Music Director Deborah Booth will use this opportunity of conducting the February & March sessions back-to-back by revisiting a few of the more successful pieces we have played, allowing us to work on the music with more depth. We will look at two pieces from last month: Floriano Canali's La Stella in 4 parts and John Wilbye's Fantasia for 6 parts. We will also revisit one of the 14th-century pieces from our November meeting (either the Giovanni da Firenze or Francesco Landini). These were really fun and definitely out of the usual “recorder canon”! Also included will be a quite difficult 5-part Fantasia by Giovanni Coperario filled with spooky dissonances and beautifully spun-out resolutions. And there may also be a couple of new surprises!
FEBRUARY 11, 2023, AT 1:30 PM
Deborah Booth conducts selections from the Italian Renaissance and early Baroque, 20th-century America for a commemoration of Black History Month, and 17th-century England for a Jacobean treat! The Italian set includes madrigals and instrumental pieces by composers Madalena Casulana, Vittoria Aleotti, Floriano Canali, and Leonora Duarte. The American, 20th-century composition is by Duke Ellington. The English piece is a wonderfully complex, contrapuntal, and sublime six-part Fantasia by John Wilbye.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, AT 1:30 PM
"Drive the Cold Winter Away" led by Larry Zukof
In the middle of January’s cold, dark weather, what better way to spend an afternoon than by playing songs, dances, fantasias, musical games, and puzzles. This session begins with pieces attributed to Henry VIII: the carol Green Grow’th the Holly and three short dances. Two rule-oriented compositions follow: Alfonso Ferrabosco the Elder’s Fantasia on the solfege syllables Ut re mi fa sol la and William Byrd’s tour de force Diliges Dominum Deum Tuum—an eight-part motet that is a palindrome with the instruction that each SATB part is actually a canon (two parts in one) with each part sung/played forward and backwards simultaneously. Our program will conclude with two contemporary settings: Will Ayton’s Fantasia on the spiritual Poor Little Jesus from his Christmas Letters collection and an arrangement of Playford’s tune Drive the Cold Winter Away by Annette Bauer.