Evento

Piffaro | Program Three, 43rd Indianapolis Early Music Festival

Since the reign of Edward III in the early 14th century, the town waytes, or shawm players, enjoyed a prominent position in the musical life of every major city in England. Like the stadtpfeiffer in Germany, the piffari in Italy and the ministriles in Spain, the waytes in the major towns of England were the finest musicians in the country, the very emblem of professional music making. From about 1550 onwards, the waytes of London enjoyed a reputation and pride of place unparalleled on the British Isles. During this time their talents became more diverse, as they added recorders, cornetto, dulcian and stringed instruments, even singers, to their standard arsenal of shawms and sackbuts.

This concert follows this fabled band through its musical adventures in the thriving metropolis of London from the latter half of the16th into the early 17th centuries. Whether ceremonial occasions of State, intimate soirees of the chamber or raucous parades in the streets, these waytes adorned each event with music appropriate to the moment, through the panoply of instrumental color available to them.

The concert will draw, as did the London waytes, on the works of some of the greatest English composers of the time, including William Byrd, Robert Parsons, Thomas Tallis, Thomas Weelkes, and John Mundy, among others, and will also include anonymous masquing ayres and Piffaro's own arrangements of some of the great, popular tunes of the day.

Joan Kimball & Bob Wiemken, Artistic Co-Directors
Grant Herreid - lute, guitar, shawm, recorder, percussion
Greg Ingles - sackbut, recorder, krumhorn
Joan Kimball - shawm, bagpipes, recorders, krumhorn, dulcian
Christa Patton - shawm, recorder, bagpipe, krumhorn, harp
Daphna Mor - shawm, bagpipes, recorders, dulcian
Bob Wiemken - dulcian, recorders, douÃ§aine, krumhorn, percussion
Tom Zajac - bagpipes, recorders, sackbut, pipe & tabor, percussion