Founded in 1980 to perform the instrumental music of Shakespeare’s time, the Baltimore Consort has explored early English, Scottish, and French popular music, focusing on the relationship between folk and courtly art song, and dance. Their interest in early music of English/Scottish heritage has also led them to delve into the rich trove of traditional music preserved in North America. Sixteen recordings on the Dorian label have earned them recognition as Top Classical-Crossover Artist of the Year (Billboard), as well as rave reviews elsewhere. Besides touring in the U.S. (all but two states) and abroad (Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, and Scotland), they often perform on such syndicated radio broadcasts as St. Paul Sunday, Performance Today, Harmonia and the CBC’s OnStage. They have also enjoyed many teaching residencies at K-12 schools, as well as at the Madison Early Music Festival and other university engagements.
Mary Anne Ballard
Mary Anne Ballard researches many of the Baltimore Consort’s programs. She also plays with Galileo’s Daughters (a multi-media ensemble drawing together the music of Galileo’s time with narration and video projections of the heavens), Mr. Jefferson’s Musicians (for which she was invited to create a program for “Soundscapes of Jefferson’s America” at Monticello), the Oberlin Consort of Viols, and Fleur de Lys, a baroque ensemble in Northern Indiana. Formerly, she directed or coached early music at the Peabody Conservatory, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania, where she founded the Collegium Musicum and produced medieval music drama. She is now on the faculty of Oberlin’s summer Baroque Performance Institute. A resident of Indiana and New York City, she music-directed the twelfth-century Play of Daniel for the 50th anniversary of the historic first performance in modern times at The Cloisters Museum in New York.
Mark Cudek
Cittern Viol Crumhorn Recorder & Whistle , Renaissance Guitar, Percussion
Mark Cudek is Chair of the Historical Performance Department at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University and also Artistic Director of the Indianapolis Early Music Festival. In recognition of his work as Founder/Director of the Peabody Renaissance Ensemble and also the High School Early Music Program at the Interlochen Arts Camp, Mark received from Early Music America the 2001 Thomas Binkley Award and the 2005 Award for Outstanding Contribution to Early Music Education. He is a former member of Hesperus and has regularly performed with Apollo’s Fire, The Catacoustic Consort, and Folger Consort. In his youth, he worked as a café guitarist in the Virgin Islands. Mark is the 2014 recipient of the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association’s Global Achievement Award.
Larry Lipkis
Viol Recorder & Whistle Crumhorn Gemshorn
Larry Lipkis is Composer-in-Residence and Director of Early Music at Moravian College in Bethlehem PA. He has also served as Director of Pinewoods Early Music Week, and is a longtime Music Director for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. His cello concerto, Scaramouche, appears on the Koch label, and his bass trombone concerto, Harlequin, was premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic to rave reviews. The trilogy was completed when his bassoon concerto Pierrot was performed by the Houston Symphony. His two chamber operas, Peronelle and Simonetta, are based on the lives and loves of two medieval/Renaissance artistic luminaries—Guillaume de Machaut and Sandro Botticelli. Larry is also the Composition Competition Coordinator for the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, and directed the orchestra’s “Enigma Variations” project in 2017 and in the following year, “Pictures and an Exhibition 2018.” Larry often lectures on the topic of Bach and Rhetoric, speaking during recent summers at an NEH institute in Leipzig.
Learn more at http://www.larrylipkis.com
Ronn McFarlane
Ronn McFarlane has released over 40 CDs on Dorian and Sono Luminus, including solo collections, lute songs, lute duets, music for flute & lute, Elizabethan lute music and poetry, the complete lute music of Vivaldi, and Baltimore Consort albums. In the tradition of the lutenist/composers of past centuries, Ronn has composed new music for the lute. These original compositions are the focus of his solo CD, Indigo Road, which received a Grammy Award Nomination in 2009. Other recent CD releases, One Morning, and Barley Moon, feature “Ayreheart,” a new ensemble brought together to perform Ronn’s music. Nine Notes that Shook the World highlights duets with Mindy Rosenfeld, flute, harp, bagpipe. Ronn's newest solo album, The Celtic Lute, features his arrangements of traditional Scottish and Irish music from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Learn more at http://ronnmcfarlane.com
Mindy Rosenfeld
A founding member of The Baltimore Consort, Mindy plays historic and modern flutes; recorders, whistles, crumhorns, bagpipe and early harp. A member of San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, she has performed under director Nicholas McGegan and guest conductors William Christie, Jordi Savall, Gustav Leonhardt, Andrew Parrott, Andrew Manze, Bernard Labadie and Trevor Pinnock; recorded extensively; and appeared in Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, the Berkeley Early Music Festival, BBC Proms (Royal Albert Hall), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam) and both Carnegie and Disney Halls. Principal Flutist with the Mendocino Music Festival Orchestra, as a guest artist Mindy has performed with American Bach Soloists, Musica Angelica, San Diego Bach Collegium, Catacoustic Consort, Apollo's Fire, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Oregon and Carmel Bach Festivals and Opera Lafayette, among others. With an MM from San Francisco Conservatory and a BM from the Peabody Conservatory, Mindy divides her time between performing, teaching, and a crazy amount of driving to and from her coastal Northern California home.
Learn more at http://fluteandlute.com
Jose Lémos
Guest Artist, Countertenor
José Lemos is internationally noted for his concert and opera performances. Since receiving the First Prize in the 2003 International Baroque Singing Competition of Chimay, Belgium, he has performed with some of the USA and Europe’s leading conductors, ensemble and opera houses, such as Zürich Opernhous, Teatro Real de Madrid, Théâtre des Champs-Élisées in Paris, Royal Festival Hall and Barbican Hall in London, Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York, under the baton of William Christie, Marc Minkowski, and Paul McCreesh, just to name a few. A versatile performer, he charms audiences with his exuberant renditions of native Brazilian and Sephardic songs in a duo with Uruguayan guitarist Marco Sartor, and performs medieval music with various ensembles, including the 12th-century Play of Daniel (role of King Darius) at The Cloisters. José is a recording artist with Dorian/Sono Luminus.
Learn more at http://joselemos.com
Danielle Svonavec
Guest Artist, Soprano
Danielle Svonavec is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame (BS in mathmatics, 1999, and MM in Voice, 2003). While still a student, she stepped in on short notice as soloist for the Baltimore Consort’s nine-concert 1999 Christmas tour. Since then she has toured with the Consort and appeared with the Smithsonian Chamber Players, Pomerium, the South Bend Chamber Orchestra, and the South Bend Symphony. The mother of three teen-age girls, she leads a busy life, currently serving as the Cantor at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame, and teaching Middle School music at the Trinity School Greenlawn in South Bend, where she is also Dean of Junior High Girls. Danielle lives with her family on a farm near Goshen, Indiana, and is frequently called on as a soloist locally, performing virtuosic cantatas and arias with the baroque ensemble, Fleur de Lys in South Bend, and solos with local choruses performing works by Handel and Haydn.
