- Le Souvenir de Vous me Tue

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- Soyes Loyal

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"...meltingly beautiful."—The New York Times

In October 2004, Asteria burst onto the national early music scene, winning Early Music America's first Unicorn Prize for Medieval and Renaissance Music with a performance heralded by the New York Times as "intimate and deeply communicative...meltingly beautiful." This engaging duo brings out the passion and emotional impact of late medieval vocal and instrumental music with timeless love songs of wide appeal, transporting their listeners back to the age of chivalry.

Eric Redlinger's sweet tenor and skill on the lute are complemented by his expertise in early music, earned through study at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and extensive archival research into original sources. Following graduation from Middlebury College, Eric spent several years immersing himself in the European musical archives of the Hague, Basel and Marburg. During this time he also did post-graduate studies in composition and musicology at the Frankfurt Conservatory of Music and studied medieval lute with Crawford Young and voice with Richard Levitt at the Schola. He now makes his home in New York, where he has studied with Drew Minter and Gary Ramsey.

Sylvia Rhyne brings to the partnership not only her quicksilver soprano but also a strong dramatic connection with the audience, gained from a professional career in musical theater. She has starred internationally as Christine in The Phantom of the Opera and on Broadway as Joanna in Sweeny Todd under the direction of Stephen Sondheim, Harold Prince, and Susan Schulman.

Raised in London and the Pacific Northwest, Sylvia grew up surrounded by classical music, opera and dance. She pursued a passion for early music at Carleton College, guided by Stephen Kelly, taking leading roles in early operas and operettas on her way to a degree in music. She studied also with Wesley Balk at St. Olaf College and recorded with Dennis Russell Davies and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Arriving in New York, Sylvia was invited to sing with the New York City Opera and began ongoing coaching with Marcy Lindheimer.

Eric and Sylvia first connected through singing with John Hetland's Renaissance Street Singers, a group that brings a cappella 15th and 16th century music to New York City sidewalks and parks. The pair immediately discovered their mutual interest in earlier repertoire and began meeting regularly to work on late medieval pieces, gradually developing their passionate approach to the music. Asteria’s performances convey the anguish and ecstasy of the poetry and the rapturous beauty of the interweaving vocal and instrumental lines.

The result of Asteria's exploration can be heard on their first recording of 15th century chansons, Le Souvenir de Vous me Tue.

100 years before the reign of the Renaissance masters, a new polyphonic art form was taking root in the low countries and making its way across a rapidly transforming Europe. The Burgundian chanson tradition, which reached its apex in the latter part of the 15th century, is much less well known and understood than that of the 16th; however, it was a crucial step in the development of western music, leading out of more chaotic, early polyphonic experiments into the refined, mature polyphony of the high-Renaissance.

At the time the chanson repertoire was created and performed, large orchestras and choirs did not exist, nor did the modern concept of a concert. Period documents often mention individual songs being performed by one or two persons as a diversion in a larger program of entertainment at banquets and other social settings at court. Small, mixed ensembles of voices and instruments were not infrequent, with lute, harp and vielle being among the favorite accompanying instruments.

The verses that make up the bulk of the Burgundian chanson repertoire often seem superficially simple, even trite, and yet they are steeped in a fascinating tradition of elevated poetry that sought to transcend the horror of everyday existence in the middle ages, with its plagues, diseases and death at every turn, creating a temporary mythical reality.

Reading court scribes of the period would lead us to believe that every move, meeting and affair was drenched in a fantastical surfeit of emotion and allegorical role-playing. Lords, courtiers, pages -- everyone rejoiced, wept and despaired with great frequency and passion. The distinction between fiction and non-fiction writing is in fact barely perceivable, with the 400 year old chivalric tradition still very much the dominant aesthetic even into the 16th century.

Quasi-deification of the "Lady", appeals for aid to personified figures representing Fate, Death, Jealousy and a general willingness to extinguish one's life at the drop of a hat for one's principles all find their way into Burgundian poetry in much the same form as in the 13th century verses of the Provencal troubadours. "The memory of you kills me when I can not see you..." writes Robert Morton in the title composition, while Estienne Grossin asks bluntly in his delightful 'Vit Encore': "...is he not dead yet, this false rascal? Then by God, he shall soon die!"

The chansons on Asteria's debut album are gathered from compositions which were likely performed in the courts of the Dukes of Burgundy at the height of their reign and cultural influence during the mid to late 15th century. Philip the Good (1396-1467), a renowned patron of spectacle and art, with his court centered in present day Lyon, was blessed with great economic prosperity and regional power unrivaled even by the King of France. His prolific court historian Georges Chastellain provides us with much of what we know about this period, including the emotionally charged comings and goings of noble guests and the wondrous fetes that witnessed such spectacles as 'a giant, leading an elephant', mechanical dragons, and one account of a 'huge meat-pie from which sprang 20 musicians'.

Every generation wistfully idolizes that which preceded it as being more pure, and uncluttered with trouble and complexity. As you listen to the work of these masters, let the emotions conveyed in their ancient melodies carry you away, as they did the courtly audiences of the middle ages, yearning for the romantic utopia of their forbears.