A 2-CD set featuring the music of Elisabetb-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, performed by Frances Conover Fitch and Peter Sykes, harpsichords, Anne Azéma, Lydia Knutson and Laurie Monahan, sopranos, Dana Maiben and Robert Mealy, Baroque violins, Na'ama Lion, Baroque flute, and Jane Hershey, viola da gamba. Also featuring harpsichords built by William Dowd, Douglas Maple, and Allan Winkler, with recording by Christopher Greenleaf in natural acoustics.



Artists' Biographies:

Anne Azéma is considered to be one of the world's leading interpreters of early vocal music. She has been acclaimed by critics on four continents for her original, passionate, and vivid approach to songs and texts of the Middle Ages, and has been widely praised in many other repertoires, including Renaissance lute songs, Baroque music, and twentieth-century music theatre. Ms Azéma has made some thirty-five recordings (Erato, Nonesuch, Harmonia Mundi, Calliope, Bridge, Näive, ATMA). A featured soloist with The Boston Camerata and the Camerata Mediterranea, she has taken prominent roles in many of these ensembles' productions (Grand Prix du Disque; Edison Prize). Among her teaching activities are master classes, seminars, residencies at conservatories and universities in France, Holland and the U.S. Recent festival performances include Amsterdam, Graz, Dresden, Leipzig, Cologne, Bergen, Versailles, Maastricht, Tanglewood and Tokyo. Anne Azéma is leader of the Early Music program at the Arsenal of Metz, France, 2005-07.

Jane Hershey studied at The Hague Conservatory with Wieland Kuyken, and at the Longy School of Music with Gian Silbiger. As both a viola da gamba player and violone player, she has performed and toured with many ensembles, including the Boston Camerata, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Hesperus, Monadnock Music and the trio Charivary. In 2005, she performed with the newly-established Carthage Consort in the American Repertory Theater's production of Dido, Queen of Carthage, by Christopher Marlowe; the consort also performed at the VdSGA Conclave and the Aston Magna Festival. Ms. Hershey is an original member of Arcadia Players of Western Massachusetts, playing in the yearly concert series, and at Dartmouth, Smith and Mt. Holyoke Colleges. She is an active teacher of viol consorts at the Powers Music School in Belmont, and at the Longy School of Music. Since 1995, she has been the director of the Tufts University Early Music Ensemble.

Lydia Heather Knutson, has appeared at many of the world's leading music festivals including Adelaide (Australia), Vancouver, Utrecht (Holland), Bergen (Norway), Tanglewood, the Cervantino Festival, and the Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals. Her voice has been described as "crystalline, beautiful and supple" (la Jornada, Mexico City), "a constant delight" (Boston Globe), and "her technique magnificent" (la Repubblica, Rome). She is a member of the medieval ensemble Fortune's Wheel and Blue Heron Renaissance Choir. As a soloist she has toured and recorded with many ensembles including Sequentia, the Boston Camerata, the Clemencic Consort (Vienna), and La Fontegara (Mexico). She has recorded for Dorian, Erato, and BMG/Deutche Harmonia Mundi.

Na'ama Lion has performed solo and chamber music recitals in Israel, Europe and the U.S., and with the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra, Boston Baroque, Boston Cecilia, and Arcadia Players. With Sequentia, she has recorded and performed music by Hildegard of Bingen. Ms. Lion is committed to performance of new music for traverso, and was invited to give a recital of new music at the National Flute Convention. Ms. Lion holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Boston University, an Artist Diploma from the Longy School of Music and a Soloist Diploma from the Arnhem Conservatory in the Netherlands. She directs the chamber music program at Mather House, Harvard University, and is on the faculty of Atlantic Union College, St. George School in RI and Amherst Early Music. Ms. Lion has recorded for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Telarc and Stradivarius. Her recording of music by women composers with the group "La Donna Musicale" was released in Spring, 2005.

Dana Maiben, hailed by the Boston Globe for her "supremely joyous artistry," is music director of Foundling, a baroque orchestra and women's advocacy project inspired by the women of L'Ospedale della Pieta. A founding member of the groundbreaking ensemble for 17th-century music, Concerto Castello, Maiben launched a new ensemble for 17th-century music, Concerto Incognito, in 2002. She plays principal violin for Arcadia Players, Apollo Ensemble, and Ensemble Abendmusik, and has served as concertmaster of the New York Collegium under the direction of Christophe Rousset, Martin Gester, Paul Goodwin, and Andrew Parrott. Maiben frequently performs with her principal teacher, violinist Jaap Schroeder, with Arcadia Players Trio, and in duo with fortepianist Monica Jakuc. She has taught at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, at Amherst Baroque Academy, and since 1989 has served on the faculty of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

One of America's leading historical string players, Robert Mealy has been praised for his "imagination, taste, subtlety, and daring" (Boston Globe). He has recorded over 50 cds on most major labels, ranging from Hildegard of Bingen with Sequentia, to Renaissance consorts with the Boston Camerata, to Rameau operas with Les Arts Florissants. In New York he is a frequent leader and soloist with the New York Collegium, ARTEK, and Early Music New York. A devoted chamber musician, he is a member of Fortune's Wheel, The King's Noyse, and the Spiritus Collective. Mr. Mealy also directs the Yale Collegium Players and the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra.

Laurie Monahan, is a wonderful and spirited singer of early and contemporary music, and tours actively both as a soloist and with her ensemble, Tapestry. Most recently her group released their newest CD, "Sapphire Night" on the MDG label featuring "Nine Orders of the Angels" by Boston composer Patricia Van Ness, paired with songs by the medieval mystic, Hildegard von Bingen. Laurie is well-known as a co-founder of Ensemble Project Ars Nova (P.A.N.), and for the past ten years she has directed and sung in the Boston-based ensemble of women's voices, Tapestry, co-founded with Cristi Catt and Daniela Tosic. Tapestry made its concert debut with Steve Reich's Tehellim at Jordan Hall in Boston, in a performance deemed "a knockout" by the Boston Globe. Since that point the group has made four recordings for the Telarc label, and the most recent recording for MDG. Laurie has made twenty-some recordings, and is on the faculty at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA.

Peter Sykes performs widely on the harpsichord, organ, clavichord, and fortepiano. He has recorded ten solo CD recordings of organ and harpsichord music, including his organ transcription of "The Planets" of Gustav Holst, and appears as a soloist and continuo player on recordings with Boston Baroque, Music from Aston Magna, and the Cambridge Bach Ensemble. He is Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Historical Performance Department at Boston University, Director of Music at First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, instructor of organ and harpsichord at the Longy School of Music, and a member of the faculty of the New England Conservatory.

Centaur Records