Their music sounds almost other worldly. They’re called New York Polyphony, and if you’ve never heard of them, it’s because their musical genre is relatively obscure.
“Singing Latin, sacred, texted polyphony.”
It’s also called early music. That’s countertenor Geoffrey Williams. They’ve traveled the world and have many fans here in Texas. In fact…
“We’ve sung in the state of Texas more than we’ve sung in the state of New York.”
I had to interrupt--"So you’re saying New York Polyphony has sung more in Texas than it has in New York?"
“That’s true — New York Polyphony has sung more in Texas than in New York.”
Here’s Trinity University’s Gary Seighman.
“We’re thrilled to be hosting the Grammy-nominated New York Polyphony at Trinity University. We’ve seen this resurgence in early music and these guys are really taking it to a new level.”
I asked Williams why music written hundreds of years ago should matter now?
“This music has a sense of clarity to it; there’s a cleanliness. We don’t autotune our voices. It’s just four voices, in their nakedness just onstage. There’s a vulnerability to it that just takes away all the technology that’s put into popular music these days. So it’s an absolute expression of the voice, of our singing, of our humanity.”
Seighman explains that there’s something else about this concert that makes it noteworthy.
“We’re thrilled that our Trinity University Chamber Singers — our student group — is going to be performing a piece on the program with them.”
New York Polyphony is collaborating with Trinity singers.
“We like working with young, young singers because we’re not so far removed from our days when we were in University” said Williams.
New York Polyphony is coming Saturday, Nov. 8.
For more on their concert, go here.
New York Polyphony video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TepB49nYgvg
