EarlyMusicNews.Org

“Fires of Love, the critically acclaimed early music quartet specialising in innovative programmes of Renaissance and early Baroque chamber music,  combining a stunning array of instruments with soprano and baritone voices. …

Fires of Love present music of the period 1500-1700 in an accessible and historically informed style. The music is colourful, dramatic and lively.  Informative programmes focus on lute and guitar songs, set amongst instrumental ensembles, solos, recent discoveries and the group’s own arrangements.   The repertoire spans the breadth of Europe; the unique voice of the Spanish renaissance, the royal courts of war torn 17th century France, the flowering of the Italian baroque and the golden age of Elizabethan lute song.  Instruments include lutes, archlute, theorbo, vihuela, baroque guitar, four-course guitar, recorders (from bass to garklein) and percussion.”

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Added on: Dec 28, 2011 | Hits: 241

“The early music ensemble Mean Time was founded in 2003 in Greenwich, with the aim of creating innovative and varied programmes of music which are accessible, and appeal to a wide range of audiences.  Specialising in work with the recorder they are also proficient at singing and playing the baroque flute and harpsichord.  Often praised for their versatility they cover repertoire spanning the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods as well as a little contemporary music. 

All members studied early music at Trinity College of Music or The Royal College of Music under the direction of Philip Thorby and Ashley Solomon.  Since leaving college they have all enthusiastically entered the teaching profession and enjoy enriching the lives of young people through music.  They also enjoy delivering workshops and are committed to charity work having particularly enjoyed a project which took music into hospitals.  Performing regularly all over the country the group has played in venues such as Wistow Church as part of The Leicester Early Music Festival, Charlton House, The Greenwich Maritime Museum and St. Alfege Church.“

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Added on: Dec 28, 2011 | Hits: 177

“Minstrels Gallery were formed to bring early music to a new audience. It has been our experience that there is a genuine interest amongst people would not normally attend a "classical" music concert. The often lively and rhythmic vivacity of the music along with the unusual sound and appearance of the many instruments we play sparks the imagination of our listeners. This was born out by a series of informal concerts held in the Great Hall of the British Museum. A very diverse and mixed audience showed a lot of interest and asked many questions about the music and its performance.

This experience has led Minstrels Gallery to develop a number of concert formats where we not only perform but also explain the music, instruments and their historic setting. This along with our school visits, where children are given the opportunity to play on the many instruments we bring, has convinced us of the enduring delight that early music can create.  …“

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Added on: Dec 28, 2011 | Hits: 147

“Founded in 1977 by Dr. J. Reilly Lewis, the Washington Bach Consort is committed to the study and performance of the complete vocal and instrumental works of Johann Sebastian Bach and his contemporaries. The mission of the Washington Bach Consort is to 1) Perform to the highest artistic standards the music of J.S. Bach and his Baroque contemporaries, 2) Expand its audience through concerts, collaborations with other performing ensembles, media appearances, marketable recordings and tours, and 3) Promote current and future appreciation of J.S. Bach in our community through compelling music education programs presented by members of the Consort.

As one of the nation's critically acclaimed and widely recognized performing arts institutions, it has appeared at numerous festivals and has made three European tours. Recordings include the Bach's complete motets, both J.S. and C.P.E. Bach's Magnificats, the first American recording of the F Major and G minor masses, and three solo soprano cantatas featuring opera superstar Elizabeth Futral. “

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Added on: Jan 15, 2012 | Hits: 175

“Since 1977, Adelaide Baroque has established a tradition of leadership in the field of authentic early music performance, revitalising known Baroque repertoire, and bringing to light freshly discovered works with a vivacity, integrity and spirit they so richly deserve. Adelaide Baroque is renowned for its uncompromising standard of excellence, and for the ongoing development of emerging professional musicians.“

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Added on: Jan 15, 2012 | Hits: 231

“The Sydney Consort is one of Australia’s most energetic music ensembles devoted to early music of the 17th and 18th Century. Originally consisting of three members the group brings together Australia’s finest musicians and singers to a small chamber orchestra of up to fifteen performers. Formed in 1997 and led by artistic directors Monika and Stan Kornel, the Sydney Consort is an ensemble dedicated to bringing beauty and wisdom of Baroque music to a rapidly growing audience. The ensemble has performed music ranging from the 16th to 18th Century, as well as contemporary Australian music, and with concert themes such as English, French, German and Italian Baroque, Music and Poetry, and the Johann Sebastian Bach concertos.”

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Added on: Jan 15, 2012 | Hits: 245

“Recordare consists of four inspired musicians who began playing together in 2010.

Under the guidance of McGill University’s world-renowned Early Music department, they discovered a wonderful rapport with one another and common approach to expression. Always looking for diverse sonorities and textures, Recordare has explored and performed a wide variety of styles and composers. Though they have focused on Italian music of the seventeenth century, the ensemble recently found an affinity with the music of Giuseppe Sammartini. Committed to a performance more thrilling than the printed page leads us to believe, the ensemble strives to reflect the “science, originality and fire” that Charles Burney found so striking in these works.

With their proposal of recording Sammartini’s chamber music, Recordare has been named one of the six finalist groups of the Early Music America/Naxos 2011 Recording Competition. The ensemble was also awarded 2nd place in the 2011 Festival de Musique Classique de Pierre-De Saurel chamber music competition.”

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Added on: Jan 21, 2012 | Hits: 225

“Praised for their “well-thought-out articulation and phrasing” (Early Music Review) and “elegant string playing that was immaculate in tuning and balance” (Early Music Today), the Sebastian Chamber Players (Sebastians) specialize in music of the Baroque and Classical eras and newly commissioned works for period instruments. Since their founding in 2001, the ensemble has performed throughout the United States. The group is comprised of members who have studied at the Historical Performance Program at the Juilliard School and as post-graduate fellows in early music at Yale University. The Sebastians were recently named the artists-in-residence at Emanuel Lutheran Church in Manchester, CT. They were finalists of the 2011 York International Early Music Competition and the 2011 Early Music America/Naxos Recording Competition.”

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Added on: Jan 21, 2012 | Hits: 250

“ Agave Baroque is a period instrument ensemble dedicated to the diverse and compelling repertoire of the seventeenth Century. Founded in 2007, Agave Baroque delivers expressive, thoughtful interpretations colored with imagination, wit, and humor. In 2009, Agave Baroque was chosen through a competitive application process to represent Early Music America at the APAP Conference in New York City, where they performed twice. Members of this engaging young ensemble also perform with some of the nation's leading baroque orchestras and ensembles, including Philharmonica Baroque, American Bach Soloists, Musica Angelica, and Ensemble Mirable, as well as the New Century Chamber Orchestra and Los Angeles Master Chorale.“

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Added on: Jan 21, 2012 | Hits: 205

“Delighting audiences around the country with their spirited performances, Armonia Celeste (ar-mo-NEE-ache-LES-tay) is an emerging ensemble specializing in rarely heard repertoire from the Italian Renaissance and early Baroque. The group is comprised of three distinct female voices accompanied by period instruments: lute, theorbo, guitar, and the rare arpa doppia (Baroque triple harp). Each of the five members of the ensemble is a highly experienced solo performer in their own right; together, the musicians create an unforgettable combination of varied vocal and instrumental colors, florid ornamentation, expressiveness, and a noticeable passion for this repertoire.

The idea for Armonia Celeste came about in 2008 when the musicians performed together at the Misiones de Chiquitos International American Renaissance and Baroque Music Festival in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Since then, the ensemble has been featured in a concert of Monteverdi’s Il settimo Libro di Madrigali with the Dallas Bach Society, performed at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth in conjunction with the museum’s exhibit, “Art and Love in Renaissance Italy,” and has offered many concerts throughout Texas and Oklahoma. At the 2009 Boston Early Music Festival, Armonia Celeste presented an extremely well-received fringe concert entitled “Love and Longing.” Early in 2010, the group appeared in, and provided music for, an educational PBS documentary presented by Early Music Television entitled “Culture Wars of Venice and the Birth of Public Opera.” Eugene Enrico, Early Music Television organizer and professor of Musicology at the Oklahoma School of Music, commented, “[The] new professional ensemble Armonia Celeste is the finest group I’ve heard performing early baroque Italian music.””

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Added on: Jan 21, 2012 | Hits: 204

“Wayward Sisters is Beth Wenstrom (baroque violin), Anne Timberlake (recorders), Anna Steinhoff (baroque cello), and John Lenti (theorbo and guitar). In 2011, Wayward Sisters won the Early Music America/Naxos recording competition, and will record their debut CD with Naxos during the 2011-2012 season. Critics have praised Wayward Sisters' "imaginative program and alert, stylish performances," as well as the group's "polished and spirited playing and well-balanced ensemble" (Chicago Classical Review).

Since debuting in 2009, Wayward Sisters has excited and inspired audiences across the United States, including appearing as Emerging Artists on the Newberry Consort's 2010-2011 concert season. Members of Wayward Sisters have studied historical performance at Oberlin Conservatory, Indiana University, and The Juilliard School.

The name "Wayward Sisters" refers not only to Henry Purcell's vivid conjuring of Shakespeare's witches, but to the group members' scattered lives and continuing commitment to making music together.”

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Added on: Jan 21, 2012 | Hits: 206

“Founded in 1986, The Four Nations Ensemble brings together soloists who are leading exponents of period instrument and vocal performance to present great music from the Renaissance through the Viennese Classical masterpieces of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. For two decades, Four Nations has developed a leading presence on the early music scene in New York and across the country. With a core ensemble of harpsichord or fortepiano, violin(s), flute, and cello, the Ensemble explores and performs the major masterpieces of the 17th and 18th centuries, from trio sonata to piano trio and quartet. Four Nations has performed at major houses and series throughout the United States including The Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center. The Ensemble has participated in festivals including The Boston Early Music Festival, New York's Mostly Mozart, Amherst Festival, New Haven's International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Virginia Waterfront International Arts Festival, Chautauqua, The Indiana Early Music Festival, The Redwoods Festival in Santa Rosa, California, and Brasilseguridade in Rio de Janeiro.”

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Tags: New York

Added on: Jan 29, 2012 | Hits: 190

“Founded in London in 2007, Ensemble Tempus Fugit’s earliest projects took place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where they mounted a concert version of Johann Adolf Hasse’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, and chamber performances of London street songs at Bloomsbury’s Goodenough College.

In 2008, the group was selected for the Brighton Early Music Festival’s BREMF Live! project, where they performed their first interdisciplinary project, SHALL WE DANCE?, incorporating players, singers and dancers in a mix of English folk and formal music that could have been heard in the courts and homes of seventeenth-century England.  In that same year, the group expanded to form the orchestra for concert and staged versions of Handel’s Acis and Galatea for New European Opera in London, Paris, and Fontevraud, France.

In 2009, Ensemble Tempus Fugit returned to the Brighton Early Music Festival with a revival of SHALL WE DANCE? , and its most ambitious project to date, CALCUTTA: a blend of theatre, puppetry and Baroque and traditional Indian classical music from the eighteenth-century port city. The Calcutta project played to a sold-out audience in Brighton, thanks to the support of the Festival, Arts Council England, and a performance and interview on BBC Radio 3's The Early Music Show.

Ensemble Tempus Fugit was a Finalist in the 2010 Early Keyboard Ensemble Competition at Fenton House, Hampstead, London in June, and played in Baroque-Indian crossover concerts led by Sanjay Guha, sitarist, at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Centre for Indian Culture this past October. The Ensemble is currently developing CALCUTTA for future performances in the UK and in India.”

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Added on: Feb 03, 2012 | Hits: 146

“La Ninfea (Italian for water lily) is dedicated to the chamber music repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries. In addition to their standard repertoire, the members of La Ninfea specialize mainly in unknown pieces of music worthy of re-discovery. The members of the ensemble have repeatedly won competitions and other awards, and have performed in various projects in different constellations. Audiences and critics appreciate their virtuous and particularly expressive performances. When the 2009 German Music Competition was announced, they decided to form a permanent ensemble, which reached the final round of the competition. The core membership of the ensemble, Christian Heim (viola da gamba), Simon Linné (Lute), and Barbara Heindlmeier (recorder), are often joined by other instrumentalists and singers according to the needs of their repertoire.”

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Added on: Feb 03, 2012 | Hits: 184

“LUXURIANS is a young, international Early Music Ensemble, situated in Bremen/Germany. Its members have won several prizes and scholarships and work with ensembles like Weser Renaissance, Salzburger Hofmusik, Orlando di Lasso Ensemble, L'Arpeggiata. The cast of ensemble LUXURIANS vary according to the program from trio to baroque orchestra. However, it concentrates on 17th Century sacred music and dance music.“

Added on: Feb 03, 2012 | Hits: 189

"In spring 2008, a group of young musicians came together in North Germany under the direction and initiative of Florian Benfer to perform a programme consisting of motets and cantatas from the 17th and 18th centuries. This group developed into the ARTON Ensemble, which now performs in varying sizes and combinations and is made up of young professional singers and instrumentalists, some of whom are still completing their studies, but all of whom bring with them a wealth of experience in renowned ensembles and as soloists on the international concert circuit. One special feature of this ensemble is the wide range of nationalities to be found among the ensemble members. This project includes musicians from France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Austria, England and Germany. Concert tours in the short history of this young ensemble have already led these excellent musicians to stages in Germany, Sweden and France.”

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Added on: Feb 03, 2012 | Hits: 190

“Scherzi Musicali is one of the notable young ensembles in the world of early music. It was founded and is directed by Nicolas Achten, one of the few classical singers accompanied by himself (on lute, harp, harpsichord), reviving this old practice. A “moveable feast”, Scherzi Musicali brings together young singers and instrumentalists like Nicolas, willing to rethink the approach to early music and seeking to serve it with a more genuine concern for musicological relevance. If getting down mainly to rehear a heritage left behind, they do not forsake the key works of the repertoire, both secular music, sacred or opera.

Since 2006, Scherzi Musicali has performed in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and England: Festival van Vlaanderen, De Bijloke (eg. a "Featuring concert" with Emma Kirkby), Concertgebouw Brugge, De Singel, Bozar, Festival Wallonia, The Automne Musical de Spa, Operadagen Rotterdam, Amia Strasbourg, Festival Baroque de Pontoise, etc...

Scherzi Musicali dedicates its debut discography to unpublished works on CD. "l’Euridice" by Giulio Caccini (the first opera ever printed), and the album " Dulcis Amor Iesu " (motets of Giovanni Felice Sances), were published on the Ricercar label. Each of their records has generated genuine enthusiasm from the international press: Joker by Crescendo, The Key ResMusica, Prelude Classics Award 2009, 4-star World Music, 5 Diapason, Muse Golden Ring Classic Info, "Outstanding" in International Record Review...

In September 2011, the album "Petits Motets" will be released, dedicated to the Belgian composer Joseph-Hector Fiocco (Label Musique in Wallonie, collection “inédits”). They then inaugurate their collaboration with the Alpha label with "La Catena d’Adone" by Domenico Mazzocchi (the first Roman opera) to be published in Februari,2012.

Scherzi Musicali is supported by the French Community of Belgium (General Directorate for Culture, Department of Music) and the Commune of Ixelles.“

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Added on: Feb 03, 2012 | Hits: 208

“VocaMe - a top-flight ensemble of renowned singers from the Early Music scene

"... (Michael) Popp formed VocaMe, a top-flight ensemble of renowned singers from the Early Music scene. Popp took on the role of musical director for the ensemble and also made use of hs expertise in various medieval instruments, providing occasional instrumental accompaniment."

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Added on: Feb 04, 2012 | Hits: 181

“Il Giardino Armonico was founded in 1985 by Giovanni Antonini (recorder), Paolo Beschi (cello) and Lorenzo Ghielmi (harpsichord), joined after a short time by the lutist Luca Pianca and the violinist Enrico Onofri, and brings together musicians from some of Europe’s leading music institutions, all of them specialized in performing on period instruments. The ensemble’s repertory is mainly focused on the 17th and 18th centuries. Depending on the demands of each programme, the group will consist of anywhere from 3 to 35 musicians. …”

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Added on: Feb 04, 2012 | Hits: 193

“Founded in 2005, the association Usclame is a collection of young researchers and a group of musicians (instrumentalists and singers), who work closely together, and that focus on French music of the second half of the seventeenth century …”

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Added on: Feb 05, 2012 | Hits: 171

“By its historically informed interpretative style, based on specific instrumental techniques, covering the 17th and 18th centuries, the ensemble sets out to restore the music of that period through concerts, recordings, collaborations with other musicians or ensembles, participation in educational, governmental and nongovernmental programmes. …“

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Added on: Feb 05, 2012 | Hits: 193

“La Nuova Musica is a vocal and instrumental ensemble dedicated to the music of the European Renaissance and Baroque. In less than five years since its foundation by counter-tenor David Bates, it has shot to prominence in the UK and abroad. Already a regular guest at the foremost Early Music venues and festivals, including King’s Place, Wigmore Hall and the Aldeburgh, Spitalfields and London Handel festivals, La Nuova Musica is establishing itself amongst critics and audiences as both a fixture and a breath of fresh air. …”

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Added on: Feb 08, 2012 | Hits: 275

“La Folia is the longest performing Spanish group in the interpretation of baroque music on period instruments and historical criteria, who, also, on occasion tackles the vocal and instrumental repertoire of the Renaissance.

The activity of La Folia consists mainly of holding concerts, recording CDs and various tasks related to research and teaching, with emphasis on Hispanic repertoire.” (Google Translate)

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Added on: Feb 17, 2012 | Hits: 219

“Welcome to the Ensemble La Danserye’s website. A group trying to spread the music from the Middle Ages to the Early Baroque, focusing primarily in the Renaissance. This is closer to what at the time was called "minstrels", ie wind musicians played various roles in the musical Renaissance.”

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Added on: Feb 17, 2012 | Hits: 211

“Datura plays medieval music. We have a divers medieval program with wild music to dance on, drinking songs, ballads, courtly- and secular music (o.a. from the Carmina Burana) and religious music (o.a.from the Cantigas de Santa Maria). We play with three or four musicians in matching medieval clothes.
   
Francesco Scafidi, Lies Sommer, Tom Haage and Nynke Glazema are together the band Datura. We work for more than ten years now as medieval musicians and have played in many castles, joustig events, medieval village parties, openings, ceremonies, weddings, gothic- folk- and fantasy festivals in the Netherlands and abroad.”

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Added on: Feb 19, 2012 | Hits: 257