PRESS RELEASE: WHAT’S YOUR SIGN?
For Immediate Release
February 14, 2026
ALKEMIE PRESENTS “WHAT’S YOUR SIGN?”
Medieval music ensemble Alkemie will offer a new concert of music that reflects the medieval Zodiac and the ways it mapped onto daily life – including agriculture, recreation, magic, medicine, and personal divination. Do you know when to avoid tree-climbing and bloodletting, but to reunite quarreling friends? Come and find out!
Key Takeaways:
Alkemie premieres a new program inspired by the medieval Zodiac
Featuring frequent collaborator, Shira Kammen on vielle
Performances in Brooklyn as well as in Charlottesville, Virginia
MARCH 6 and 8, 2026
What’s Your Sign?
Friday, March 6 @ 7:30pm
Location: Jalopy Theatre
315 Columbia St, Brooklyn NY 11231
What’s Your Sign?
Sunday, March 8 @ 8:00pm
Location: The Rotunda at the University of Virginia
1826 University Ave, Charlottesville VA 22904
PRESS FOLDER (Alkemie Bios & Press Photos)
PROJECT WEBPAGE
On March 6, Alkemie will premiere WHAT’S YOUR SIGN? at the Jalopy Music Theatre in Brooklyn, a program curated by ensemble members Tracy Cowart and Ellie Sutherland that presents rarely-heard 13th-15th century German music in a program inspired by the medieval Zodiac. Along with early-music luminary Shira Kammen, we will explore music from Oswald von Wolkenstein, Hugo de Montfort, the Glogauer Liederbuch, and the Carmina Burana that grapples with the timeless question - are we in charge of our own fates, or do the stars control our destinies?
With Tracy Cowart (voice, harps, percussion), Shira Kammen (vielle), Ben Matus (voice, recorders, medieval bagpipes, percussion), David McCormick (vielle, rebec), Sian Ricketts (voice, recorders, douçaines), Niccolo Seligmann (vielles), and Ellie Sutherland (voice, percussion). For tickets and more information, please visit alkemie.org/whats-your-sign.
Alkemie along with the Early Music Access Project (EMAP) will present an encore peformance of WHAT’S YOUR SIGN? at the Rotunda at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville on March 8. Constellations projected onto the Rotunda dome will serve as a mesmerizing backdrop for this unique performance. For tickets and more information, please visit earlymusiccville.org/upcoming-events.
Later this season, Alkemie looks forward to a new show, Eleanor, written by Alkemie member Niccolo Seligmann starring Elisse Albian about the historical trans figure Eleanor Rykener; the joyous return of our May Day festival; and a collaboration with the Brooklyn-based collective ChamberQUEER.
About Alkemie
A restless collective of medieval experimentalists, the Flatbush-based band Alkemie recently gained recognition beyond Brooklyn with their soundtrack for the video game Pentiment (directed by Obsidian studios and published by Xbox) and their dream-pop / shoegaze / psychedelic rock album of troubadour texts, a fine companion. Comprised singer-performers playing two dozen instruments–including vielles (early fiddles), harps, psaltery, scheitholt (early zither), recorders, douçaines & dulcians (early double reeds), bagpipes, and percussion, they have been presented locally and nationally by the Amherst Early Music Festival, Arizona Early Music Society, Brooklyn Public Library, Cambridge Society for Early Music, Capitol Early Music Series, Five Boroughs Music Festival, Johns Hopkins Program in Arts, Humanities & Health, Music Before 1800, and the European Early Music Network virtual Early Music Day festival. Incorporated as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit in 2018, Alkemie presents its own NYC-based concert series as well as touring and recording.
About Shira Kammen
Multi-instrumentalist and occasional vocalist Shira Kammen has spent well over half her life exploring the worlds of early and traditional music. A member for many years of the early music Ensembles Alcatraz and Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, she has also worked with Sequentia, Hesperion XX, the Boston Camerata, the Balkan group Kitka, the King’s Noyse, the Newberry and Folger Consorts, the Oregon, California and San Francisco Shakespeare Festivals, and is the founder of Class V Music, an ensemble dedicated to providing music on river rafting trips. She has performed and taught in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Israel, Morocco, Latvia, Russia and Japan, and on the Colorado, Rogue, Green, Grande Ronde, East Carson and Klamath Rivers.
She has played on several television and movie soundtracks, including ‘O’, a modern high school-setting of Othello and ‘’The Nativity Story’, and has accompanied many diverse artists in recording projects, among them singers Azam Ali and Joanna Newsom. Some of her original music can be heard in an independent film about fans of the work of JRR Tolkien. The strangest place Shira has played is in the elephant pit of the Jerusalem Zoo. She has recently taken courses in Taiko drumming and voiceover acting.
Contact Us:
For Alkemie:
Tracy Cowart, Co-Managing Director
Email: tracy@alkemie.org
Sian Ricketts, Co-Managing Director
Email: sian@alkemie.org
