The current Music Divine perhaps could be called Music Divine II, since it is the 2024 rebirth of the original Music Divine, which was active from 2005 through 2011.
During that first run, we presented concerts in churches on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Lower East Side, and Greenwich Village, as well as inside some of the most resonant tunnel underpasses in Central Park. We brought some of those programs to churches in Teaneck, NJ, and Boston. In addition, several members of the group demonstrated Renaissance choral music for a Columbia University Humanities class; accompanied a Shakespeare lecture at the New York Public Library; and, as part of a New York chapter meeting of the American Musicological Society, made a surprise performance of Parisian Renaissance chansons for Dr. Isabelle Cazeaux (director of my graduate work in music history at Bryn Mawr College) in honor of her 85th birthday.
In 2007 we took part in the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) and the New York Early Music Celebration (NYEMC). Robert Aubry Davis broadcast much of our NYEMC performance of Josquin Desprez and Heinrich Isaac masses on his nationwide Sirius XM radio program "Millennium of Music." Here are his comments on the performance of Josquin's Missa Une Mousse de Biscaye:
"Gosh, I don't think we've ever heard that on Millennium, have we? Wow!
I just think it's so great to have this. . . . Let's turn to this extraordinary performance. . . .
I wish we had time for the whole thing."
To all lovers of early music--and especially of Josquin Desprez--Davis says this piece is one of Josquin's works that
"we've never heard and must hear."
Music Divine let more people hear this piece in 2011 at what we thought would be our "Final, farewell concert";
our return in 2024 let it be heard once again. (We're not finished performing this gem.)
For the 2007 BEMF, we presented our "War and Peace" program, which we will be offering again this spring, April 28,
back home in "the city." (see Performances page)
For our return to the 2009 BEMF, Music Divine performed Jacob Obrecht's Missa Salve diva parens, a monumental, late-15th-century mass that transcended the recently established "classical" norms of polyphonic composition.
For the 2011 BEMF, Music Divine presented "Renaissance: Christmas in June"—the Noël part of our "Not Only Noël" concert from the previous December.
Music Divine participated in the annual Make Music New York festival every June 21, starting in 2008, when we presented a sneak preview of our "War & Peace" concert* inside a resonant Central Park underpass near the zoo. In 2009 we found an even better underpass and performed all of the music of our two previous concerts. Half of the group returned there for MMNY 2010, to perform Josquin's Missa de Beata Virgine and a few pieces from our "Stile Moderno" concert; for MMNY 2011, we repeated most of our "Renaissance Pastoral" concert (music of Mouton, Lambe, Sheppard; and settings of Agnus Dei by five other composers).
* which we will be offering again this spring, April 28 (see Performances page)