Tina Chancey is a multi-instrumentalist specializing in early bowed strings from the rebec and vielle to the kamenj, renaissance fiddle, violas da gamba and pardessus de viole.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio to Communist parents, Chancey went into music at an early age, and attended Oberlin College. After three years at Oberlin, which had little early music in 1967-70, she moved to New York City to continue her education. She received her Bachelor's in Music and MA in performance from Queens College, City University of New York, her MA in Musicology from New York University, and her PhD in Musicology from the online Union Institute.[ citation needed ]
After 10 years in New York City with the Ensemble for Early Music and the New York Renaissance Band, she moved to Washington, DC and married Scott Reiss. She performed with the Folger Consort and started Hesperus, an early-traditional ensemble, with Scott in 1979. HESPERUS performed throughout the Far East, Latin America, Europe and the States, specializing in British and Spanish Colonial Music and Medieval & Appalachian Fusion. The group has 15 CDs and 6 DVDs to its credit.
Chancey is a specialist on the pardessus de viole (a 5-string hybrid viol/violin played on the lap during the 18th c.), and received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts to support solo performances on the pardessus de viole at the Kennedy Center and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. [1] She has seven pardessus recordings; solos, a duo CD with Catharina Meints, and three with Trio Pardessus. Chancey currently performs a variety of early music styles with HESPERUS and Sephardic music with Trio Sefardi. Besides performing, she produces recordings for herself and others, teaches musical skills and improvisation, writes scholarly and popular articles, and directs HESPERUS, which is currently known for its early music soundtracks to classic silent films such as The Mark of Zorro, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Nosferatu, Häxan and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Chancey has also performed with Ensemble Lucidarium, Ex Umbris, Ensemble Toss the Feathers and the Ensemble for Early Music.
In addition, she has written articles for publications such as Early Music America Magazine, as a book reviewer. [2]
Chancey has also been a member of the Renaissance-Rock group Blackmore's Night (featuring Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple and Rainbow with his partner, Candice Night). Her stage name with them is "Tudor Rose." [3]
For silent film scores please visit : Hesperusplayszorro.com
Early music generally comprises Medieval music (500–1400) and Renaissance music (1400–1600), but can also include Baroque music (1600–1750). Originating in Europe, early music is a broad musical era for the beginning of Western classical music.
Renaissance music is traditionally understood to cover European music of the 15th and 16th centuries, later than the Renaissance era as it is understood in other disciplines. Rather than starting from the early 14th-century ars nova, the Trecento music was treated by musicology as a coda to Medieval music and the new era dated from the rise of triadic harmony and the spread of the contenance angloise style from Britain to the Burgundian School. A convenient watershed for its end is the adoption of basso continuo at the beginning of the Baroque period.
The viol, viola da gamba, or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch of each of the strings. Frets on the viol are usually made of gut, tied on the fingerboard around the instrument's neck, to enable the performer to stop the strings more cleanly. Frets improve consistency of intonation and lend the stopped notes a tone that better matches the open strings. Viols first appeared in Spain in the mid-to-late 15th century, and were most popular in the Renaissance and Baroque (1600–1750) periods. Early ancestors include the Arabic rebab and the medieval European vielle, but later, more direct possible ancestors include the Venetian viole and the 15th- and 16th-century Spanish vihuela, a six-course plucked instrument tuned like a lute that looked like but was quite distinct from the four-course guitar.
Blackmore's Night is a British-American neo-medieval folk rock band formed in 1997, consisting mainly of Ritchie Blackmore and Candice Night. Their lineup has seen many changes over the years; Blackmore and Night have been the only two constant members. They have released eleven studio albums. Their early releases were mostly acoustic and imitated early music, but eventually Blackmore's Night started using more electric guitars and other modern instruments, as well as performing folk-rearranged cover versions of pop and rock songs.
The rebec is a bowed stringed instrument of the Medieval era and the early Renaissance. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body and one to five strings.
New York Pro Musica was a vocal and instrumental ensemble based in New York City, which specialized in Medieval and Renaissance music. It was co-founded in 1952, under the name Pro Musica Antiqua, by Noah Greenberg, a choral director, and Bernard Krainis, a recorder player who studied with Erich Katz. Other prominent musicians who joined included Russell Oberlin and Martha Blackman and Frederick Renz, who founded Early Music Foundation after Pro Musica disbanded.
Hesperus is an early music and traditional music ensemble. It was founded by Scott Reiss and Tina Chancey in 1979 to play early European music, American traditional music and crossover fusions of the two, as well as British and Spanish Colonial music. It currently specializes in early music scores to 1920s silent films such as The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Golem, Nosferatu, The General and The Three Musketeers (French renaissance and traditional music.
An early music revival is a renewed interest in music from ancient history or prehistory. The general discussion of how to perform music from ancient or earlier times did not become an important subject of interest until the 19th century, when Europeans began looking to ancient culture generally, and musicians began to discover the musical riches from earlier centuries. The idea of performing early music more "authentically", with a sense of incorporating historically accurate performance practice, was more completely established in the 20th century, creating a modern early music revival that continues today.
Maggie Sansone is a hammered dulcimer player and recording artist from Miami, Florida.
Alice Harnoncourt was an Austrian classical violinist. She was a pioneer in the movement of historically informed performance, founding with her husband Nikolaus Harnoncourt the Concentus Musicus Wien ensemble playing on period instruments, of which she was principal violinist.
Indianapolis Early Music (IEM) is a non-profit organization established in Indianapolis in 1966 to organize concerts featuring music of the medieval, renaissance, baroque, and early classic eras. Since 1966, it has produced the annual Indianapolis Early Music Festival, the oldest continuous Early Music festival in the United States.
Asteria is a vocal ensemble founded in 2003 that specializes in historically-informed performances of medieval and Renaissance music, based on extensive research with original source material. It is based in Brooklyn, New York. The act consists of Sylvia Rhyne, soprano, and Eric Redlinger, tenor and lute player. Their repertoire is anchored in 15th century chanson, including noted composers such as Du Fay and Antoine Busnoys.
David Noon is a contemporary classical composer and educator. He has written over 200 works from opera to chamber music. Noon's composition teachers have included Karl Kohn, Darius Milhaud, Charles Jones, Yehudi Wyner, Mario Davidovsky, and Wlodzimierz Kotonski. He was a distinguished member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music for 30 years.
Sergei Istomin is a cellist and a viola da gamba player. He began his violoncello studies at the age of six at the Gnessin School for gifted children in Moscow, Russia, where he obtained his bachelor's degree. He completed his master's degree at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the class of Valentin Feigin and then later his post-graduate studies with Catharina Meints Caldwell at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and August Wenzinger at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute (BPI). In 2018 he received his Doctor of Arts (Music) degree at the Ghent University, Belgium. His doctoral thesis "Variations on a Rococo theme, Op.33: Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Fitzenhagen: a creative collaboration. Moscow and Saint Petersburg violoncello schools in the light of European traditions: a historical and textological clarification" is in the field of historically informed performance practice and musicology.
Schola Antiqua is a professional American early music ensemble based in Chicago, Illinois. The group specializes in pre-modern vocal music and is the 2012 winner of the Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society, an award that recognizes "outstanding contributions to historical performing practices." In 2006 and 2007, Schola Antiqua served as Artist in Residence at the University of Chicago, and the group currently holds an artistic residency at the Lumen Christi Institute. Schola Antiqua of Chicago performs mainly in Chicago but has also presented concerts around the United States and internationally. The choir is under the artistic direction of Michael Alan Anderson from the Eastman School of Music.
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.
The Catacoustic Consort is an early music chamber ensemble based in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was founded in 2001 by Annalisa Pappano. It specializes in historically informed performances of Baroque and Renaissance music.
The pardessus de viole is the highest-pitched member of the viol family of instruments. It is a bowed string instrument with either five or six strings and a fretted neck. The pardessus first appeared in the early 18th century, and was commonly played by women, particularly in French-speaking countries.
Rosa Lamoreaux is an American soprano, appearing mostly in concert, both as a soloist and in vocal ensembles. She has appeared at festivals such as the Carmel Bach Festival and the Rheingau Musik Festival, and has recorded works by Johann Sebastian Bach with different conductors.
Judith Davidoff was an American viol player, cellist, and performer on the medieval bowed instruments. She was considered the “Grande Dame of the viol”, "a master of the viola da gamba and other stringed instruments" and "a central part of the early-music scene." Her recorded performances reflect her wide range of repertoire and styles, including such works as Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht and 13th-century monody. She is responsible for the catalog of 20th- and 21st-century viol music.