EarlyMusicNews.Org

“Carreg Lafar means 'speaking stone', an echo stone. At the forefront of the Welsh traditional music scene, the group has changed many peoples' view of traditional Welsh music with their passionate and lively performances. Through a mix of traditional and original music, Carreg Lafar presents a vibrant spirit whilst remaining rooted in the language and living tradition of Welsh song and dance music. The music is arranged for traditional and contemporary instruments including fiddle, flute, pibgorn (hornpipe), pibau (bagpipes) and guitar, together with dynamic vocals. The group has made three albums with Sain records, 'Ysbryd y Werin', 'Hyn' and 'Profiad'.”

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Added on: Mar 14, 2012 | Hits: 160

“One of few professional lute ensembles, the Venere Lute Quartet performs Renaissance and Baroque masterworks and is actively expanding the surviving lute ensemble repertoire with its own arrangements. The ensemble has performed throughout the United States and in Europe. Some appearances include the Lute Society of America, the Seattle Early Music Guild, La Guitarra California, Amherst Early Music Festival, Cambridge Society for Early Music, and the Fodella Foundation Series in Milan, Italy. Members of the Quartet are busy lute professionals in four of America's leading early music centers (Boston, New York, Chicago, and Minneapolis) who share a deep commitment to ensemble playing, lute scholarship, and audience education. “

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Added on: Mar 14, 2012 | Hits: 137

“THE GOOD PENNYWORTHS, a vocal ensemble with lute accompaniment from NYC, was founded in 2007 to explore lute songs and traditional folk ballads with dramatic flair. The group’s concert programs feature quartets, duets and solo songs, engagingly staged to bring out the laughter and passion contained in these songs. …”

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Added on: Mar 14, 2012 | Hits: 226

“The early music ensemble was founded in 1999 as a group of five musicians with Zehm-Elisabeth Thoma as director. The ensemble’s main focus is the interpretation of music from the Middle Ages and Renaissance music. Singing and historical instruments such as lyre, viol, Renaissance flute, trumpets, harp and percussion are performed in concerts. …” 

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Added on: Mar 13, 2012 | Hits: 160

“Ghislieri Choir & Consort, Baroque ensemble in residence at the College Ghislieri, provides some of the best singers and instrumentalists Italian Baroque. Has an active project of rediscovery of the sacred choral reperorio the eighteenth century that will be released worldwide by Sony-Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.  …” (Google Translate)

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Added on: Mar 03, 2012 | Hits: 136

“Taking its name from a prevalent theme of the age of Louis XIV, Le Tendre Amour is based in Barcelona, though its members are originally from many corners of the world. Since their beginning, the emphasis has been in creating unusual programs, always with the aim of pleasing audiences of all ages.

The ensemble, directed and organized by Katy Elkin and Esteban Mazer, has performed in top early music festivals in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland, France, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Spain. In 2008 Le Tendre Amour was awarded the prize for best interpretation at the Varazdin Baroque Evenings festival (Croatia) for their program of Jewish baroque music.

Over the past few years, their artistic interest has turned towards the field of chamber opera, although they continue performing various repertoires in their original format of seven musicians. (See our “Programs” page for details). Le Tendre Amour has recorded a CD of sacred French cantatas for the label K617 (France) called Le Passage de la Mer Rouge.  Their next release is a CD of English music called “All in a Garden Green” for the label Brillant Classics (Holland), available March 2012.“

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Added on: Mar 02, 2012 | Hits: 190

“The Vivaldi Project is a premier period instrument ensemble dedicated to presenting 17th- and 18th-century string repertoire. The name, The Vivaldi Project, refers not only to the group's core repertoire―the extraordinary works of the virtuoso violinist and composer, Antonio Vivaldi―but also the project of probing into the roots of Vivaldi's distinctive musical style. Vivaldi's innovative contributions to string writing, the concerto genre, and programmatic orchestral music place him as as a pivotal figure between earlier baroque composers and later classical composers. The Vivaldi Project explores this link through both chamber and orchestral works (those well-known and beloved as well as those rarely heard) from Stradella, Legrenzi, and Corelli, to J.S. Bach and his sons, and ultimately to Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. …

The Vivaldi Project, under the leadership of violinist Elizabeth Field and cellist Stephanie Vial, has been gaining critical acclaim for its brilliant and expressive string playing, as well as its innovative programming which combines scholarship and performance to both educate and delight audiences. The members and guest artists of The Vivaldi Project include leading soloists, concertmasters, teachers, and musical scholars in the Washington, DC area and around the country. Since it was founded by Field in 2006, the Vivaldi Project has performed throughout the DC area, and for the Washington and Boston Early Music Festivals. In 2010, the ensemble toured the Piedmont region of North Carolina with an unprecedented performance of all six of C.P.E. Bach's String Sinfonias, W. 182, under guest conductor John Hsu. The final live performance of these works at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC will be released on CD by Centaur Records on April 2, 2012.”

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Added on: Mar 02, 2012 | Hits: 155

“Modern Musick, under the artistic leadership of music director John Moran and concertmaster Risa Browder, is a baroque chamber orchestra founded in Washington, DC in January 2002.  Taking its name from an eighteenth century primer The Modern Musick-Master or the Universal Musician, Modern Musick seeks, through the immediacy of live performance, to restore a sense of newness to music of the 17th and 18th centuries.  To this end Modern Musick uses period instruments and historical performance practices as a starting point allowing the musicians the freedom to make new discoveries.  Modo (latin for “just now”), the root of the word “modern” is the perfect description for cutting edge music making of the moment.“

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Added on: Mar 02, 2012 | Hits: 149

“Harmonious Blacksmith combines the best of creative conceptual programming with the fire of virtuoso performing and improvising. Uniquely focused on the connection between composition and improvisation in Renaissance and Baroque music, Harmonious Blacksmith looks back to the age-old practices of improvising dance music and ornamenting songs. …

Harmonious Blacksmith was founded in 2006 by harpsichordist Joseph Gascho and recorder player Justin Godoy. They met while studying at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, performing together in the Peabody Renaissance Ensemble under the direction of Mark Cudek. They also performed together at the Amherst Early Music Festival, the International Baroque Institute at Longy, and in numerous recitals in the Baltimore/DC area.  …”

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Added on: Mar 02, 2012 | Hits: 170

“Based in Washington, DC, Ensemble Gaudior is dedicated to performing masterpieces of chamber music from the Baroque and Classical eras, using instruments from those periods or careful modern copies. By presenting this repertoire to modern concert audiences, we hope to contribute to the process of moving our world toward greater harmony. (The name Gaudior is borrowed from the musical unicorn in Madeleine L’Engle’s book A Swiftly Tilting Planet, who time-travels through the universe joyfully harmonizing with the music of the stars and planets.)”

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Added on: Mar 02, 2012 | Hits: 216

“Armonia Nova is an ensemble of instruments and voices based in the Washington D.C. area. Its members perform medieval and Renaissance music of Europe on instruments that are re-creations of historical instruments, applying scholarship and informed historical performance practice. Members of Armonia Nova strive to achieve an historically authentic performance with the desire for the listener to hear this remote yet remarkably beautiful music as it might have sounded when it was newly created.

Armonia Nova has been frequently praised for its intelligent and creative programming. The performances of this ensemble capture the emotional content of the music, bringing an intensity and immediacy to the performance while maintaining the purity and clarity of tone so essential to music of these early periods.”

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Added on: Mar 02, 2012 | Hits: 199

“ArcoVoce is a chamber group made up of some of the East Coast’s most acclaimed performers on both modern and period instruments. ArcoVoce, whose name translates loosely from the Italian for strings and voice, may be unique in specializing in performances on both sets of instruments, as well as in including vocal chamber music as an integral part of its performances. ArcoVoce has performed in prestigious venues including Washington D.C.’s Phillips Collection and Corcoran Galleries, the German and Dutch Embassies, the Boston Early Music Festival, and Alexandria Virginia’s Lyceum. ArcoVoce’s repeated performances at the Phillips Collection have earned it status as a resident chamber ensemble of the gallery. Among the notable guest artists who have appeared with ArcoVoce are the celebrated baroque violinist Elisabeth Wallfisch, principal cellist of Musica Antique Koln Phoebe Carrai, and longtime principal clarinettist of the Cleveland Orchestra Franklin Cohen.“

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Added on: Mar 02, 2012 | Hits: 182

“Roberto Di Cecco | cantus
Huub van der Linden | altus
Nicola Bonazzi | tenor
Marco Spongano | bassus

The Speculum ensemble works with a basic formation of four male voices with precise ranges that correspond to 15th- and 16th-century musical theory and practice. The polyphony of that period is based on a sound ideal in which the homogeneity of the whole is coupled with the perfect autonomy and recognisability of the individual voices. The ensemble is, however, regularly expanded when the music on the programme so requires. In those occasions the group is joined by Giacomo Serra, Christian Gentilini, Sergio Martella, Brent Annable, and others.”

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Added on: Mar 01, 2012 | Hits: 208

“With their baroque and mythological image, that of a terrifying monster and a pyrotechnical figure, «Les Cyclopes» explore baroque vocal Art with a totally new approach. They cover this aboundind universe with strength and enthusiasm, precision and contrast, ranging from the intimacy of the harpsichord to theatrical exuberance.

In january 2010 Bibiane Lapointe and Thierry Maeder have been made «Chevaliers dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres»”

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Added on: Mar 01, 2012 | Hits: 156

“Inspired by the gloriously virtuosic music from the end of the 17th century, from which the name "Stylus Fantasticus" was coined, the aim of the ensemble is to recreate repertoire from the early seicento until the late baroque searching and exploring the extravagance that flourished when composers and instrumentalists dared to traverse the established limits of the usual.

From the excesses of Biber, through the unrestrained harmonic richness of Rameau and the ravishing melodic imagination of Pandolfi Mealli, to the vividness and passion of the forerunners of romanticism as depicted by the generation after Bach, Fantasticus makes no compromises with regard to authentic performance, fearlessly trespassing on the borders of correctness.”

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Added on: Mar 01, 2012 | Hits: 215

“Founded in 2000, and after winning prizes in such prestigious competitions as Musica Antiqua (Bruges 2003) and Premio Bonporti (Rovereto, Italy 2004), Rossi Piceno has established itself as an increasingly successful baroque ensemble, appearing in several festivals, in Austria, Spain, The Netherlands, Belgium and Mexico.

The group´s first CD with oboe trio sonatas by the Catalan composers J.B. and J. Pla appeared in 2006 receiving very good reviews in many European music magazines.

The ensemble has always been characterized by the diversity of its members’ nationalities. The group consists of young musicians of great expertise, active in many other renowned ensembles and orchestras such as Concerto Italiano, Concerto Köln, Freiburger Barockorchester, Hesperion XXI, La Petite Bande, Les Talens Lyriques, L'Orfeo Barockorchester, Zefiro, to name a few.

The professionalism, devotion and enthusiasm with which the ensemble works is reflected in the variety of their programming, and their interest in exploring little-known repertoire.”

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Added on: Mar 01, 2012 | Hits: 327

“MaryAnn Shore ~ Recorder & Baroque Oboe & Susan Patrick ~ Harpsichord”

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Added on: Mar 01, 2012 | Hits: 192

“Ironwood is an Australian-based ensemble, committed to exploring music of the baroque, classical and romantic periods on early string and keyboard instruments. The members are some of Australia’s most respected early and contemporary chamber musicians. The ensemble was established in 2006 as a flexible group of players, drawing on a wealth of experience from across the globe. Ironwood believe that historically informed performance should be complemented with new material and has an active commissioning program for music on early instruments. The group performs widely and has produced recordings for ABC Classics and Vexations840. Ironwood are 2007 - 2010 Artists in Residence at the Bundanon Trust, NSW, and also run a Developing Artist program in Victoria and NSW.”

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Added on: Mar 01, 2012 | Hits: 266

“Latitude 37, named after the latitudinal position which links Melbourne, Australia, to New Zealand, is an exciting baroque trio whose members Julia Fredersdorff (baroque violin), Laura Vaughan (viola da gamba) and Donald Nicolson (harpsichord) were drawn together by their passion for historically informed performance of 16th, 17th and 18th century music.

Comprising some of the top graduates of the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, reunited after many years of extensive research and international experience playing with many of the finest ensembles and artists in Europe, America and Australasia, Latitude 37 represents a new generation of period instrumentalists who share a unified interest in cultivating and communicating their art.

Latitude 37 epitomises the intensity and intimacy of a trio: vitality, excitement and expression are a defining feature of their performance. Their spontaneity is inspired by a passion for the art of improvisation, communication, and the humanity of a genre of music intended to charm and enchant its audience.

After their sold-out Melbourne debut in June 2008,  the ensemble has become an active presence on the Australasian early music scene, with regular festival appearances, concerts at the Melbourne Recital Centre, tours for Chamber Music New Zealand and regular broadcasts on ABC Classic FM.   2011 saw the ensemble receive an ARIA nomination for their self-titled debut CD and return to New Zealand for a mainstage national tour for Chamber Music New Zealand.  2012 includes a 3-concert subscription series at the Melbourne Recital Centre as well as performances to accompany the Renaissance exhibition at the NGA, Canberra, and the Love and Devotion exhibition of Persian manuscripts at the Victorian State Library.”

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Added on: Mar 01, 2012 | Hits: 244

“Ars Lyrica Houston (ALH) offers audiences a broad range of music from the 17th and 18th centuries, on period instruments and with careful attention to period style and context. Ars Lyrica, which means “lyric art,“ performs on period instruments because they produce a sweeter, more intimate sound than their modern equivalents and are better suited to the performance of Baroque music especially. Founded in 1998 by harpsichordist and conductor Matthew Dirst and incorporated in 2003 as a 501(c)(3) organization, this Grammy–nominated ensemble offers a yearly series of programs at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Houston and also performs regularly at other area and national venues.

Under Dirst’s leadership, ALH “set[s] the agenda for imaginative period–instrument programming in Houston“ (according to the Houston Chronicle) with a distinctive blend of chamber, dramatic, and sacred works from the late Renaissance through the Classical era in music history. Its recordings have garnered international acclaim: Gramophone, the leading journal of the classical recording industry, praised Ars Lyrica’s debut CD for its “exemplary skill and taste,“ the ensemble’s musicians for their “impassioned performance“ of never-before recorded works by Alessandro Scarlatti; while Ars Lyrica’s latest CD, the world première recording of Johann Adolf Hasse’s Marc Antonio e Cleopatra, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Opera 2011.

ALH is proud to have represented Houston’s thriving early music community with programs at national meetings and conventions of the American Musicological Society, the American Bach Society, the American Guild of Organists, the Society for 17th–Century Music, and, this past summer, at the world–renowned Boston Early Music Festival. ALH also serves communities across Texas through frequent collaborations with other Texas–based arts organizations, including leading choral groups and early music sponsors. In addition to its concert and recording activities, ALH offers diverse educational and outreach programs, which focus on enriching the concert experience and on building new audiences.

Recent efforts in this area include two distinctive in–school programs for K–12 children in the Houston area, family concerts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, university-level workshops and collaborations, demonstrations of period instruments, performances at nontraditional venues, and lectures about upcoming programs.”

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Added on: Mar 01, 2012 | Hits: 225

“The Collegium Musicum "Fernando Silva-Morvan" is a professional ensemble specializing in performing music from the baroque to the classical period. It was founded alongside the Baroque Camerata in 1985 by Professor Isabel Palacios, in order to have the entire musical structure for the study and implementation of comprehensive repertoire of music from these periods, either vocal repertoire, choral or orchestral.”

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Added on: Feb 29, 2012 | Hits: 185

“The young CONCERTO ROMANO ensemble was formed as part of a project to revive the vast body of the hitherto forgotten music by the Roman composer, Francesco Foggia (1604-1688). The project was received with enthusiasm by critics and audiences alike and the ensemble decided to continue on their path and specialise in the music of their city. …

… The ensemble is made up of a fix nucleus - Paolo Perrone (baroque violin), Luca Pietropaoli (cornet), Serena Bellini (flutes) Luca Marconato and Francesco Tommasi (guitar and thorbos), Andrea Buccarella (cembalo and organ), Luca Cervoni (tenor) and Giacomo Farioli (bass) - and a variable number of singers and intrumentalists, all whom specialise in early music. It has performed regularly since 2006 and under Alessandro Quarta’s baton, has given many first contemporary performances in Italy (Rome, Florence, Palestrina) and Berne, also in numerous events sponsored by Rome’s Archeological Heritage Department and by the Rome City Council. In 2009, CONCERTO ROMANO debuted at the prestigious early music festival, Tage Alte Musik, in Herne, Germany, in 2010 in the Konzerthaus in Vienna meeting with enormous success. In 2011 Concerto Romano performed in the Vatican, at Rheingau Musik Festival and again with the German broadcasting station WDR in Kempen.“

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Added on: Feb 28, 2012 | Hits: 196

“Ganassi is a group dedicated to the dissemination of Renaissance and Baroque music, which brings together musicians who have played and loved period music for over a decade. Its name comes from Silvestro Ganassi (1492 -?), One of the most important theorists of the Renaissance, who also has the merit of being the first to write a treatise devoted exclusively to the recorder: The Fontegara, printed in Venice in 1535.

Since its founding in 2004, Ganassi has distinguished itself by reviving the sounds of Renaissance and Baroque music through the use of reproductions of original instruments from different eras, as well as respect for the canons of interpretation of the same .”

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Added on: Feb 27, 2012 | Hits: 167

NOTE -- THIS SITE HAS POPUP WINDOWS THAT YOU MAY WANT TO AVOID -- ADMIN

The Early Music Group Kalenda Maya, whose name goes back to the spring celebrations of twelfth-century France or "Kalends of May" is a vocal and instrumental group that has been dedicated since its inception in 1997 to study, research, interpretation and dissemination of music produced between the Middle Ages and the Baroque. The repertoire includes medieval European dances of the twelfth century, through romances, carols and other Renaissance vocal forms, dealing with the European court music from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, and culminating with the musical production held in America during the colonial ages. An important part of the group’s work is dedicated to exploring traditional music such as airs of Spanish or Sephardic Jewish and Celtic music. …” (Translation aided by Google Translation)

Added on: Feb 27, 2012 | Hits: 185

“Gro Siri Johansen, soprano, has a degree in classical voice from the Rogaland Conservatory and a diploma in Gregorian chant from the National Conservatory of Music in Paris. She is a founding member of the Paris-based vocal ensemble Dialogos, whose recording Terra Adriatica won the diapason d’Or and Le Choc in Le Monde de Musique. She has also performed and recorded her own settings of texts by Knut Hamsun, and participated in theater productions and musicals. In 1999 she founded Modus Center for Medieval Music in Oslo, where, as artistic director, she organizes and teaches courses in Gregorian chant and medieval vocal music.

Elizabeth Gaver, vielle and rebec, earned degrees from Stanford University and Juilliard before deciding to specialize in early music. She soon joined the medieval ensemble Sequentia, with whom she performed concerts throughout Europe, the US, Israel, Japan and Morocco. She participated in over a dozen recordings with the ensemble, along with several theatre productions. Since moving to Oslo, she has performed and recorded with Pro Musica Antiqua, Oslo, Modus ensemble and The Norwegian Baroque Orchestra.

Hans Olav Gorset, flutes, teaches recorder, Baroque flute, and performance practice at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. He has toured as a soloist and ensemble member in the US and Canada, and in many European countries, and made solo recordings that have been well received in the international press. With his group Pro Musica Antiqua, Oslo, he has discovered and recorded Scandinavian music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. His activities also include instrument making and freelance work for the Norwegian Radio.

Guest appearance
Morten Røhrt, is a well-known actor in Norway, where he has worked for theatres in Stavanger, Tromsø, Bergen and Oslo. His repertoire ranges from Dostoevsky to Wilde, from modern drama to musicals, cabarets and one-man shows. He voice is often heard in public radio, and he has also played an important part in a very popular television series, Hotel Cæsar.”

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Added on: Feb 24, 2012 | Hits: 165