The Five Centuries Ensemble (1971-1984) was an early music ensemble in Paris and Italy during the 1970 and early 1980s. It was one of the first groups preceding the revival of interest in early music and historically informed performance of baroque music in the mid-1970s and 1980s.
The group's founding members were counter-tenor and composer John Patrick Thomas, cellist Marijke Verberne, and American soprano Carol Plantamura. [1] William Christie (harpsichordist) - following his 1971 first recording with the Parisian musicologist Geneviève Thibault de Chambure (Neuilly-sur-Seine 1902 – Strasbourg 1975). [2] Other members included American soprano Judith Nelson and harpsichordist John Whitelaw.
After the departure of Christie and Nelson to focus on baroque music with René Jacobs' Concerto Vocale in 1976, the remaining members of the Five Centuries Ensemble turned more to contemporary music, written for them by composers, such as, Luis de Pablo, Charles Boone, Lukas Foss, Morton Feldman, COMBINED with Early Music, 17th Century and earlier, based on thematic similarities , both musical and textual.
Carol Plantamura is an American soprano specializing in 17th and 20th century music.
Pomponio Nenna was a Neapolitan Italian composer of the Renaissance. He is mainly remembered for his madrigals, which were influenced by Gesualdo, and for his polychoral sacred motets, posthumously published as Sacrae Hebdomadae Responsoria in 1622.
Peter Philips was an eminent English composer, organist, and Catholic priest exiled to Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands. He was one of the greatest keyboard virtuosos of his time, and transcribed or arranged several Italian motets and madrigals by such composers as Lassus, Palestrina, and Giulio Caccini for his instruments. Some of his keyboard works are found in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Philips also wrote many sacred choral works.
Tomás Marco Aragón is a Spanish composer and writer on music.
Mara Galassi is an Italian harpist, musicologist and recording artist specializing in the music for Early harps, including Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque, in particular double (cross-strung) and triple harps of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, as well as Classical era single-action pedal harps.
Giulio Castagnoli is an Italian composer.
The Diapason d'Or is a recommendation of outstanding (mostly) classical music recordings given by reviewers of Diapason magazine in France, broadly equivalent to "Editor's Choice", "Disc of the Month" in the British Gramophone magazine.
Martin Pearlman is an American conductor, harpsichordist, composer, and early music specialist. He founded the first permanent Baroque orchestra in North America with Boston Baroque in 1973–74. Many of its original players went on to play in or direct other ensembles in what became a growing field in the American music scene. He later founded the chorus of that ensemble and has been the music director of Boston Baroque from its inception up to the present day.
Judith Anne Nelson, née Manes was an American soprano, noted for her performances of baroque music at the beginning of the "early music revival" of the 1970s and 1980s.
Journey Through Dalmatia is album by Ensemble Renaissance, released on 14 March 1999 on the Al Segno label. It is their 14th album overall, dealing with early music of Dalmatia and Adriatic, from the earliest medieval manuscripts with Beneventan chant and church music, to the first authentic Dalmatian Renaissance composers, such as Petar Hektorović, who wrote down two songs, one bugarštica Kada mi se Radosave vojevoda and one song I kliče devojka, both of which were printed in Venice; also are included the first composers active in Republic of Ragusa, like Vincenzo Comnen, the renaissance printers like Andrea Antico, Julije Skjavetić, Marcantonio Romano, renaissance dances, music of nobility, up to the early baroque and late baroque sonatas and motets by Tomaso Cecchini, Ivan Lukačić, Vinko Jelić. The tracks included on the album are also first renaissance dances. One of the members of the Ensemble, Dragan Mlađenović, cites the album as their greatest success. The Journey through Dalmatia was their second album dealing with early music of Dalmatia and Adriatic, the first being Music of the Old Adriatic from the 1983.
Hana Blažíková is a Czech soprano and harpist. She is focused on Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music, appearing internationally. She has recorded as a member of the Bach Collegium Japan, among many others.
Collegium Vocale Bydgoszcz is a Polish vocal quartet founded in 1992.The band was founded on the initiative of Roman Fijałkowski a baritone soloist of the band Madrigalists Capella Bydgostiensis. The first line-up of this vocal quartet: Roman Fijałkowski - baritone, Michał Zieliński - tenor. Janusz Cabała-countertenor, Hanna Michalak - soprano. Its repertoire includes polyphonic mass settings, motets, religious songs, madrigals and secular songs by European 13th to 17th century composers. The ensemble has cooperated with other Polish early music ensembles including Ars Nova, Capella Bydgostiensis, The Pomeranian String Quartet, Trombastic, Canor Anticus as well as with lutenists Magdalena Tomsińska and Henryk Kasperczak. The ensemble has participated in early music festivals of Poland as well as abroad in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belarus and Italy. The ensemble has made numerous recordings both for Polish Radio and Polish Television.
Bonifazio Graziani was an Italian organist, composer and clergyman in the Baroque period.
Musica Secreta is a British vocal ensemble that was founded in 1991 by soprano Deborah Roberts to explore music written by and for women in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 2000, musicologist Laurie Stras joined the ensemble as a co-director. The group has made several award-winning albums. They collaborated with novelist Sarah Dunant in a musical dramatization of Dunant's novel Sacred Hearts which ran between 2009 and 2012.
French harpsichordist, organist and pedagogue born in 1961, Jean-Marc Aymes was appointed professor of harpsichord at the CNSMDL in 2009, after two years as director of the Regional Centre for Baroque Art in Marseille.
Arion Baroque Orchestra, founded in 1981, is a Canadian baroque orchestra based in Montreal, Quebec, specializing in music of the 18th century performed on period instruments.
Evgeny Sviridov is a Russian violinist and academic teacher based in Germany who turned from the Russian romantic style to the Baroque violin which he studied in Cologne. He has been concertmaster for the ensemble Concerto Köln beginning in 2015, and has lectured Baroque violin at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen from 2018.
Giovanni Antonio Cangiasi was an Italian composer.