We need your support for P4L3STR1N4 RECONSTRUCTED and other new music programs.

We won’t be holding our previously-planned event on April 27, so your first chance to hear P4L3STR1N4 RECONSTRUCTED will be our performance on May 20, 2017.

We hope to see you there — and to make it possible we still need your support.

A collision of the ancient and the modern, the Manhattan Choral Ensemble will perform a new composite work comprised of motets by the Renaissance master Palestrina and new works for mixed acoustic-electric ensemble by composer-conductor Thomas Cunningham.

Palestrina’s settings of the love poetry of the Song of Solomon are monuments of the golden age of polyphony and the MCE will perform the first ten of the collection published in 1587. Between the motets, new music based on an original text inspired by the Song and crafted from musical materials borrowed from Palestrina’s compositions will be performed, featuring a soprano soloist, oboe, violin, cello, synthesizer, and two electronic percussionists.

An intriguing marriage of elements from electronica, hip hop, contemporary classical music, and Renaissance vocal writing, this new work, P4L3STR1N4 RECONSTRUCTED, plays at the boundary of old and new, examining a beloved masterwork through a thoroughly modern perspective.