An Academy of Early Music–Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments Partnership Event.

While Renaissance England treasured wildflowers, it had a less comfortable relationship with the wilderness, which harbored not only wild animals, but also malignant beings from ancient day: elves, fairies, hobgoblins, and the like. An ideal garden should be well-tended and have some symmetry. So too the instrumental music of the period, which was allowed to branch from its roots, and blossom, whilst keeping safely within prescribed boundaries. In the garden and the fantasia, pattern and tonality served as “safe zones” from which to observe the wonders of nature and the imagination.

The viol quartet PARTHENIA brings early music into the present with its repertoire that animates ancient and fresh-commissioned contemporary works with a ravishing sound and a remarkable sense of ensemble. These “local early-music stars,” hailed by The New Yorker and music critics throughout the world, are “one of the brightest lights in New York’s early-music scene.” Parthenia is presented in concerts across America, and produces its own series in New York City, collaborating regularly with the world’s foremost early music specialists.

The quartet has been featured in prestigious festivals and series as wide- ranging as Music Before 1800, the Harriman-Jewell Series, Maverick Concerts, the Regensburg Tage Alter Musik, the Shalin Lui Performing Arts Center, the Pierpont Morgan Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Yale Center for British Art, Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Parthenia’s performances range from its popular touring program, When Music & Sweet Poetry Agree, a celebration of Elizabethan poetry and music with actor Paul Hecht, to the complete viol fantasies of Henry Purcell, as well as the complete instrumental works of Robert Parsons, and commissions and premieres of new works annually.