About our guest artists
Winners of the American Prize in Chamber Music, The New Consort is a vocal chamber ensemble dedicated to exploring the roles that musical ritual and community can play in 21st-century lives. We program historical works for voices, then recontextualize them for a modern audience; we commission and highlight significant new works that think deeply about vocal music’s legacy and future; and we knit rituals and stories out of our performances, marrying old and new wisdom about inspiring empathy, community, and awe. We bring the unique emotive power of vocal ensemble music out of its historical place in religious ceremony, using it instead to humanize the marginalized and illuminate thematic connections among creators in many genres of musical expression.

Founded by baritone & Artistic Director Brian Mummert, The New Consort has been presented by organizations including Trinity College, Cambridge; Tippet Rise Art Center; Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue; The Walters Art Museum's First Fridays series; The Bach Store, an NYC pop-up concert hall; Gotham Early Music Scene’s Midtown Concerts Series; Pegasus Early Music and New York State Baroque; Spectrum NYC; and at concert halls, churches, and schools throughout the Northeast United States. Recent and upcoming commissions include projects by Rossa Crean, Jonathan Woody, Simon Frisch, Hope Littwin, Niccolo Seligmann, Ethan McGrath, and Sarah Meneely-Kyder. Members of The New Consort have appeared as soloists, choristers, and conductors with some of the world’s best-respected ensembles, but relish the opportunity to collaborate as chamber musicians.

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This event has been made possible in part by the Gian Lyman Silbiger Grant of the Viola da Gamba Society of New England. This award fosters the performance of music for viols and voices around New England and encourages further exploration of the viol and its music.

‘To ornament things divine’: Celebrating William Byrd’s sacred and devotional music

Friday, Sept. 8 at 7 p.m. | St. John’s Episcopal Church (400 Humphrey St., New Haven)
FREE; donations welcome

Saturday, Sept. 9 at 2 p.m. | St. Ignatius of Antioch (552 West End Ave, NYC)
$25 suggested, but all are welcome regardless of their ability to donate.

Brooklyn’s The New Consort joins forces with the Elm City Consort to mark the 400th anniversary of William Byrd’s death. Built around Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices (ca. 1592), the performance will include additional works in English and Latin from all of Byrd’s major collections, as well as pieces for viol consort.

The New Consort
Clifton Massey, countertenor
Daniel McGrew, tenor
Brian Mummert, baritone

Elm City Consort viols

Joshua Keller

Rosamund Morley
Michael Rigsby
Cat Slowik

“Nor has it been in any way granted to me to satisfy my task, save only that I have tried to ornament things divine with the highest art at my command…”

William Byrd in the dedication of his Gradualia (ca. 1605) to Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton