Alkemie Early Music Ensemble

Alkemie champions medieval music (1100–1550 c.e.) and new music inspired by the same through the creation of vibrant performances, media, interdisciplinary collaborations, and outreach activities that are rooted in scholarship and reach into our present world. Our multifaceted aesthetic enhances the general public’s enthusiasm and understanding of early music – especially as it resonates with and challenges modern assumptions. Comprised of singer-performers playing two dozen instruments – including vielles (early fiddles), harps, psaltery, scheitholt, recorders, douçaines & dulcians (early double reeds), bagpipes, and percussion – Alkemie’s performance at the Indianapolis Early Music Festival was lauded as “enchanting” and “indicating [the] future health of the field of early music.”

Founded in 2013, Alkemie is based in Brooklyn and also performs nationally. Currently, Alkemie creates and performs 4–7 new programs a year, including 2–3 deeply-researched “concert-hall” performances, and 2–4 concerts in non-traditional venues. Most programs include a new work(s), and during the 2023-2024 season Alkemie will commission 11 female and non-binary composers to set texts by female troubadours. In 2021, Alkemie began creating interactive materials to accompany its video broadcasts, a practice it now extends to select in-person programs.

In 2022, Alkemie recorded its first studio albums – “Fine Companion” and “Love to my Liking.” These albums will be released in November 2023 and April 2024. From 2020–2023 Alkemie also curated, composed, and recorded music for the BAFTA award-winning historical RPG videogame "Pentiment," developed by Obsidian studios and published by Microsoft Xbox; the game was released in 2022 and the soundtrack will be released as a vinyl record in the fall of 2023.

In addition to growing a series in NYC, Alkemie has been presented by the Amherst Early Music Festival, Arizona Early Music Society, the Brooklyn Public Library, the Cambridge Society for Early Music, Capitol Early Music Series, Five Boroughs Music Festival, Johns Hopkins Program in Arts, Humanities & Health, Music Before 1800, San Francisco Early Music Society, and the European Early Music Network virtual Early Music Day festival.