Praised for its “tight blend and technical expertise” [icareifyoulisten.com], SCIENCE FICTA tackles the thorniest polyphonic challenges, old and new. The ensemble's arcane but rewarding repertory comprises new commissions, music from forgotten (but wonderful) chapters of the early music revival, and a wealth of sixteenth-century works that have been unjustly neglected by modern performers and listeners.

Science Ficta's performances seek points of contact between contemporary music and the diverse experimental musical traditions of the late Renaissance pioneered by composers including Christopher Tye, Ferdinando de las Infantas, John Baldwin, and Johann Walter. Science Ficta has premiered new works by Molly Herron, Doug Balliett, and Cleek Schrey, and residencies with graduate composers at Princeton (2017), the University of Virginia (2019), and Columbia University (2022) have fostered new compositions for viola da gamba ensemble (and, often, electronics).

In August 2021 Science Ficta released its debut recording, Through Lines (New Amsterdam Records), a collection of new works for viols by composer Molly Herron. Through Lines has been featured on WNYC's New Sounds (hosted by John Shaefer), and three beautiful videos of Molly's pieces were created by Maiko Kikuchi and four/ten media (links below).

In February, 2023, SCIENCE FICTA released Ronde de Saisons: musique pour quatuor de violes (NewFocus), featuring modern premiers of compositions for viols by Henri Casadesus (1879–1947), Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936), and Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921). “Music for viols from the French (and Belgian) Belle Époque?!” you ask? Yes. While the Dolmetsch family played dress up and scraped its way through Renaissance polyphony in the English countryside, a very different early music revival was occuring in France and Belgium in the decades surrounding the turn of the 20th century. The Société des Instrument Anciens, featuring Laurent Grillet (vielle), Louis van Waefelghem (viola d’amore), Louis Diémer (harpsichord) and Jules Delsart (viola da gamba), made its debut at the Salle Pleyel in Paris in May, 1895. In 1901 the ensemble was re-formed as a “quatuor de violes” by Henri Casadesus and Camille Saint-Saëns, featuring Lucette Casadesus (viole de gambe), Marius Casadesu (quinton), Henri Casadesus (viole d'amour), and Maurice Devilliers (basse de viole).

Listen to Science Ficta’s Ronde de Saisons on Spotify

With this lineup, the Société would tour the world, appear on the most prominent stages of Europe and America, and inspire the formation of several successful “quatuors de violes” during the first half of the twentieth century. In the late 1920s, one set of the Société’s historical viols (quinton, viola d’amour, viola de gambe, and basse de viole) would be donated by Henri Casadesus to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, then led by Casadesus’ close friend Serge Koussevitzky. Those instruments remain in Boston, though no longer in any condition to be played. For Ronde de Saisons, SCIENCE FICTA used modern reproductions (quinton, viola d’amore, tenor viola da gamba, bass viola da gamba) and performance editions created from the wealth of surviving manuscripts of music composed for the Société during its three successful decades at the start of the twentieth century. Linked below is the first movement of Respighi’s delightful and rollicking quartet for viols. Enjoy!