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.
Website: home.earthlink.net/~armonianova

CARMINA (Latin for "poetry" or "songs") is a chamber choir devoted to exploring the diverse musical styles of the Middle Ages through the early Baroque. The group gave its first public performance in the spring of 1998 at the Spotlight on the Arts Festival in Fairfax, Virginia. Since then, Carmina has performed frequently in the Washington area, making appearances at such venues as the National Cathedral, Anderson House, and St. Patrick's Catholic Church. Carmina has also collaborated with numerous local period instrument ensembles including the Orchestra of the Seventeenth Century, the Chesapeake Viol Consort, the Bach Sinfonia, and the Washington Cornett and Sackbutt Ensemble. Carmina has been praised both by the Washington Post and by the Baltimore Sun, which noted the group's "gorgeous tonal balance." Washingtonian magazine has included Carmina in its list of "Good arts groups you might not know about." In 2002 Carmina won a special grant for new and emerging artistic organizations from the Virginia Commission for the Arts.
Website: www.carmina.org

Chantry is a group of 16 of Washington's leading early music singers, dedicated to fresh, vibrant, historically-authentic performance of neglected masterpieces of early music. Chantry specializes in Renaissance polyphony and music of the Baroque era, and since its founding in 2001 its repertoire has included many rarely-heard works by composers from Josquin and Byrd to Schütz and Purcell. Chantry has performed on a number of prestigious Washington area concert series including those of the Cosmos Club and Cedar Lane Unitarian Church. In June, 2004, Chantry will be featured in the opening concert of the Washington Early Music Festival, singing Handel's Coronation Anthems, the great Te Deum from Gibbons' Second Service, and other music performed at the coronation of George II. Most of Chantry's members, who are among the finest musicians in the Washington area, maintain active professional singing careers. The name "Chantry" comes from the Old French chanterie, "to sing." (In medieval and Renaissance times, a "chantry" was a chapel-often a small chapel inside a cathedral-dedicated to the singing of masses for someone's soul, or an endowment for the singing of such masses.)

David Taylor, Chantry's founder and music director, holds a D.Mus.A. degree in choral literature and performance from the University of Colorado, and a M.Mus. degree in conducting from the University of Maryland. He was the founding music director of Musicorum, a southern Minnesota early music ensemble, spent 15 years as a college choral director, and is a former member of the Choir of Men and Boys of Washington Cathedral and former Assistant Conductor of the University of Maryland Chorus, and a present member of the Parish Choir at St. Paul's K Street. Chantry sings much of its repertoire from performing editions prepared by Dr. Taylor.

The members of the Chesapeake Viol Consort have been playing together since 1997, sometimes in public performances but equally often in private, for their own enjoyment. While each of the musicians is extensively involved in the world of early music, most of them spend the majority of their time doing things other than playing the viol, including research, editing, teaching, and performance on other instruments.

Stuart Cheney recently completed his doctorate in musicology at the University of Maryland and currently teaches at Goucher College; he also edits the Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society of America.
Lauri Bennett Kreeb is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory in both contrabass and viol, and recently completed a bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Maryland.
Alexandra MacCracken earned bachelor's and master's degrees in music from the University of Illinois and is the founder of Ensemble Gaudior, in which she plays baroque violin.
Thomas MacCracken holds a doctorate in musicology from the University of Chicago and serves as editor of the Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society; he is also active in the Washington area as a harpsichordist.
Daniel Rippe was awarded a diploma in viol from the Peabody Conservatory, and is a frequent performer in the Baltimore-Washington area on several kinds of early bowed string instruments.

Cheryl Stafford, founder and Artistic Director of The Court Dancers for 22 years will present Early Music Youth, a workshop for musicians beginning to advanced, ages 8-25. It is an opportunity to hear a concert of professional musicians, have a hands-on experience with trying out all sorts of instruments, to sing and dance and to perform in a concert with professional musicians. Ms. Stafford is a professional dancer, singer, director and choreographer, and has been researching, performing and teaching historical dance since 1978. Classically trained in ballet, modern dance and voice at the University of Cincinnati Conservatory, she also studied with many noted scholars and authors, and performed with the Court Dance Company of New York as a guest artist on several occasions. She currently serves on the Board for the Maryland Council for Dance, is Vice President for Dance Performance, and Chair of the Heritage Committee, for the National Dance Association. Ms Stafford danced in the PBS/BBC Television Series "Dancing," and can be seen performing historical dance clips on the "American Memories" web pages of the Library of Congress. She has performed at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center and with numerous early music ensembles across the United States. Ms Stafford has reconstructed/choreographed many historical opera/ballets, as well as presented over 250 historical dance performances nationwide. Ms. Stafford is a founding member of the Washington Early Music Society.

Website: www.ensemblegaudior.com

Alexandra MacCracken has been specializing in early-music performance styles since 1986. As a baroque violinist she has performed locally with the Washington Bach Consort, the Violins of Lafayette, and Modern Musick, as well as other period-instrument ensembles in Richmond, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and New York. Before moving to the Washington area she taught at the University of Virginia, where she also played in the Piedmont Chamber Players, a faculty ensemble. Other highlights of her extensive experience as a chamber musician include membership in the Squareknot Quartet, whose repertoire ranged from the classics to innovative arrangements in popular, folk, and jazz styles; and more recently in the baroque groups La Stravaganza and Harmonia Nova. The holder of both bachelor's and master's degrees in music from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, she currently freelances on modern as well as baroque violin and in addition occasionally finds time to play Renaissance consort music on the treble viol.
Violin by Georg Klotz (Mittenwald, Germany, 1774), in original, unmodernized condition; bow by Louis Bégin (Montreal, 1998, after early 18th-century French models)

Violinist Elizabeth Field enjoys an active career as a chamber musician and soloist on both period and modern instruments. She is currently a member of The Washington String quartet, resident ensemble at George Washington University, ArcoVoce (performing on both modern and period instruments) and Brandywine Baroque chamber ensemble. Ms. Field holds a Doctorate from Cornell University in Historical Performance Practice and from 1989-1998 was first violinist of the period instrument, van Swieten Quartet, in residence at the Longy School of Music in Boston. From 1993 to 1999 Ms. Field served as Professor of violin and first violin of the Sun Quartet at California State University, Sacramento and as adjunct professor at The University of California, Davis. She has recently taught at Duke University and is currently on the faculty of George Washington University. Elizabeth is currently concertmaster of The Bach Choir of Bethlehem and has served as a guest concertmaster for various Washington based groups including the Washington Bach Consort, Washington Chamber Symphony, and the Cathedral Chorale Orchestra. From 1982-1991, Ms. Field performed and recorded extensively for Deutsche Grammophon with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and played with The St. Lukes Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Ballet Theater, American Composers Orchestra, The Handel & Haydn Society of Boston, and The City Opera of New York. Ms Field has, currently in production, a recording of four Leclair Sonatas for Dorian Records.

Stephanie Vial performs a broad repertoire on both modern and period cellos. The holder of an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University, a master's from Indiana University, and a D.M.A. in Eighteenth-Century Performance Practice from Cornell University, she has performed with such groups as the Apollo Ensemble, the Washington Bach Consort, Arcovoce, Publick Musick (Rochester, NY), and Les Violons du Roy (Quebec City), and has recorded for Dorian, Naxos, Centaur, and CBC Radio. A frequent lecturer and recitalist, she is currently writing a book on the subject of musical punctuation for publication with the University of Rochester Press' Eastman Studies in Music. Ms. Vial makes her home in Durham, NC.
Cello by William Forster the Elder (London, circa 1770), restored to its original condition by William Monical of New York in 1998.

Webb Wiggins is coordinator of the Early Music Program at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, as well as a faculty member at two summer programs, the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute and Amherst Early Music. He has taught harpsichord at Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and George Mason University, and has been a visiting professor of harpsichord at Oberlin College's Conservatory of Music. A regular guest with ensembles such as Hesperus, the Dryden Ensemble, Apollo's Fire, the Violins of Lafayette, the Philadelphia Classical Orchestra, Concert Artists of Baltimore, Pomerium Musices, NYS Baroque, and the Oberlin Baroque Ensemble, Mr. Wiggins has also recorded with the Baltimore Consort, the Folger Consort, the Smithsonian Chamber Players & Orchestra, and Tempesta di Mare.
Harpsichord by Willard Martin (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1978), after Nicolas Blanchet (Paris, c. 1715), with two keyboards (five octaves, FF-f''') and three sets of strings (8', 8', and 4').

Scott Reiss, founder and co-director of Hesperus, is one of the world's leading recorder players. At home in medieval, Renaissance, and baroque styles, he also possesses a command of Irish and Appalachian music and the blues. In addition to the recorder, Mr. Reiss is known for his work on the hammered dulcimer, Irish pennywhistle, and Arabic hand drums. He was also a founding member and co-director of the Folger Consort for 21 years. His articles on recorder technique, improvisation, and traditional music have been published in Continuo, American Recorder, and Early Music America in this country, and Tibia in Germany. He also directs SoundCatcher, a series of workshops teaching musicians the skills of playing by ear. With his wife, Tina Chancey, he was the recent recipient of a two-year grant from Earthwatch to do ethnographic research on Irish music. His most recent solo recording is The Banshee's Wail, with Dr. Chancey, Zan McLeod and Glen Velez.
Hesperus website: www.hesperus.org

Ronn McFarlane, lute has released over twenty recordings on the Dorian label, including the solo music of John Dowland, lute song recitals, and recordings with the Baltimore Consort. Inspired by the lutenist-composers of the Renaissance, he has also composed over twenty-five new pieces for the lute. In 1996, Shenandoah University conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Music for his work in bringing the lute and its music to a worldwide audience.
Baltimore Consort's website: www.baltcons.com

Modern Musick, under the artistic leadership of music director John Moran and concertmaster Risa Browder, is a new baroque chamber orchestra in Washington, DC. Taking its name from The Modern Musick-Master or the Universal Musician, an 18th century primer, 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.
Website: gfhandel.org/bleissa/modernmusick.htm

The Suspicious Cheese Lords, a male a cappella ensemble, performs concerts and provides church service music for the DC metropolitan area. Although specializing in music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, their repertoire ranges from Gregorian chant to original composition. Currently the Cheese Lords are Artists-in-Residence at the Franciscan Monastery in Washington. The ensemble assisted in developing "An Evening at the Tabard Inn," an event for the Smithsonian Institution's Resident Associates program, in which the Cheese Lords provided music contemporary to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Their 2002 CD release, Mæstro di Capella: Music of Elzéar Genet (Carpentras), was featured on public radio's Millennium of Music, and received critical acclaim in Fanfare magazine and Early Music America. For their 2003-2004 concert season, the Cheese Lords performed unrecorded works of Swiss-born composer Ludwig Senfl (c. 1486-1542/3) including his Miserere mei and Missa L'homme armé. Previous performance venues have included the Washington National Cathedral, the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center, the Cathedral of St. Thomas More (Arlington), the Church of the Annunciation, the Church of the Ascension and Saint Agnes, Christ Church (La Plata, MD), and XM Satellite Radio's live performance studio. The Suspicious Cheese Lords' unorthodox name is derived from a playful mistranslation of the Tallis motet Suscipe quæso domine.
Website: www.cheeselords.org

The Washington Cornett and Sackbutt Ensemble is dedicated to music that was written during the heyday of the cornett and the sackbutt (c. 1475-1750). The ensemble performs a repertoire ranging from 16th century wind band music to sophisticated baroque chamber works. In addition to its own concert schedule, the WCSE often adds its characteristic sound as support for choral ensembles or soloists in the Washington, DC area. The instruments played by the group, the cornett and the sackbutt, were very popular throughout Europe and the colonial Americas. The versatility of these instruments is demonstrated by the fact that they were used for outdoor entertainment, civic ceremonies, religious services, and chamber music. The WCSE is fast becoming the premier ensemble of its kind in North America. During the summer of 2003, they were invited to perform at the Historic Brass Society International Festival at Yale University. They will also perform at this summer's event at Oberlin Conservatory. The WCSE is a component of the Orchestra of the 17th Century, both directed by Michael Holmes.
Website: www.earlymusic.net/WCSE