New Season of Early Music Performances Marks 75th Anniversary Year at The Cloisters Featured Groups Include Waverly Consort, Lionheart, Orlando Consort, Blue Heron, Pomerium, and Sequentia

The 2013–14 season of live performances of early music at The Cloisters—The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s branch museum dedicated to the art and architecture of the Middle Ages—has been announced by Concerts at The Cloisters. The program was specially planned in celebration of The Cloisters’ 75th anniversary year, which began last spring. All concerts will be performed within the historic apse of the 12th-century church of San Martín in Fuentidueña near Segovia, Spain. The unique setting and superb acoustics—combined with access to masterpieces of medieval art—provide participants with an unforgettable concert experience.

Season highlights:

• Saturday-Sunday, December 14-15, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., ticket $45 New York City’s acclaimed Waverly Consort reprises the perennial favorite The Christmas Story under the direction of Michael Jaffee. Arranged as a narrative, this thoughtful program combines vocal and instrumental music.

• Sunday, December 22, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., ticket $45 The six-man a cappella ensembleLionheart performs Laude: Joy and Mystery in Medieval Italy. Laude are devotional songs in the vernacular from late medieval Italy.

• Sunday, February 9, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., ticket $40 Valentine’s Day comes early when England’s a cappella Orlando Consort performs The Discourse of Medieval Love, a lively concert of chansons and carnival songs by Guillaume de Machaut, John Dunstable, and Jacobus Clemens.

• Sunday, April 13, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., ticket $40 A highlight of Music for Canterbury Cathedral by the Boston-based choral group Blue Heron is the New York premiere of Robert Hunt’s Stabat Mater, which was originally commissioned by Canterbury Cathedral around 1550. (The concerts complement the exhibition Radiant Light: Stained Glass from Canterbury Cathedral, on view February 25-May 18. The exhibition is made possible by the Ruddock Foundation for the Arts.)

• Saturday, April 19, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., ticket $40 Hauntingly expressive plainchants and their elaborations by Guillaume Du Fay and Ludwig Senfl; highly charged responsories by Carlo Gesualdo; and the grand and exuberant motets of Orlande de Lassus, Claudio Monteverdi, and William Byrd characterize the performance by Pomerium, one of the most highly acclaimed American choral ensembles today, under director Alexander Blachly.

• Sunday, April 27, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., ticket $40 The season comes to a close with the New York premiere of Frankish Phantoms: Echoes from the Carolingian Palaces bySequentia, one of the most respected and inventive ensembles of medieval music in the world. Director Benjamin Bagby collaborated with musicologist Sam Barrett of Cambridge University to reconstruct the lost melodies of the Carolingian court.

About The Cloisters 

The Cloisters museum and gardens—the branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe—is located in Fort Tryon Park in northern Manhattan with a spectacular view overlooking the Hudson River. The Cloisters Collection includes sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, metalwork, and stained glass housed in a building designed to evoke the period in which these splendid objects were produced.

To order tickets

Concert tickets include same-day admission to The Cloisters museum and gardens. All tickets are for general seating. To purchase tickets, or for further information, call (212) 650-2290 or visit our website at www.metmuseum.org/cloisters.

Directions

Subway: A train to 190th Street, exit by elevator and walk through the park or transfer to M4 bus (Fort Tryon Park-The Cloisters). Bus: M4 Madison Avenue (Fort Tryon Park-The Cloisters) to last stop. Car: Henry Hudson Parkway north to first exit after George Washington Bridge. Free parking available.