NEW YORK POLYPHONY GARNERS SECOND GRAMMY® NOMINATION FOR SING THEE NOWELL

01.14.15
New York Polyphony
New York Polyphony

Critically acclaimed SACD reaches Top 10 on Billboard Magazine’s Traditional Classical Albums Chart

New York Polyphony, the acclaimed male vocal quartet behind one of The New Yorker magazine’s “Top Ten Notable Classical Music Recordings of 2012,” has received a second consecutive GRAMMY® nomination in the Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance category for their 2014 Christmas release Sing Thee Nowell (BIS Records/SACD BIS-2099).  

Selected by The New York Times for their "2014 Holiday Gift Guide", Sing thee Nowell has enjoyed robust sales, reaching the Top 10 on Billboard Magazine's Traditional Classical Album chart. The album--the group's fifth release and third on BIS Records--follows last year's critically acclaimed, GRAMMY-nominated Times go by Turns (BIS Records/SACD BIS-2037).

A program of Christmas music that spans nearly ten centuries, Sing thee Nowell features the group's signature fusion of ancient and modern repertoire. New works by contemporary composers Michael McGlynn, Andrew Smith, and John Scott, as well as arrangements by group members Craig Phillips (as Alexander Craig) and Geoffrey Williams, are presented alongside medieval and Renaissance carols and motets. 

The GRAMMY® nomination of Sing Thee Nowell builds on enthusiastic critical acclaim since its release in September 2014. Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim in The New York Times praised the vocal quartet’s second Christmas disc as “the rare kind that functions as an antidote to the season's cash-register-jingling madness and forced jollity. The medieval and Renaissance carols and motets, with a few carefully camouflaged contemporary works, offer a spacious and radiant retreat from the hype and hassle.”  BBC Music Magazine praised the quartet’s performance, writing “The vocal blend is consistently velvety, the pitching unerringly accurate.” Gramophone called the album, “elegantly refined… perfectly together and blended, and includes new arrangements as well as sophisticated versions of old arrangements that are minutely detailed.”  International Record Review called the album “a brilliantly successful new CD…. immaculately yet expressively performed and incomparably well recorded.”

To hear Clemens non Papa’s Magi Veniunt from Sing thee Nowell, click HERE.