Music of Renaissance Flanders

Music from the 15th and 16th centuries
by Flemish composers

The Quilisma Consort

Melika M. Fitzhugh, Lisa Gay, and Carolyn Jean Smith with special guest Tom Zajac,
recorders

Sunday, March 2, 2008, 3 PM
at the Loring-Greenough House, Jamaica Plain

Thanks to Frank Jones, John Tyson and Tom Zajac for lending instruments for this program.
Sponsored by the Boston Recorder Society.

About the Musicians

The Quilisma Consort has been exploring the beautiful music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance since 2004.

Melika M. Fitzhugh (recorders) is a long-standing member of the world music ensemble Urban Myth where she plays many instruments including violin, bass, and percussion. She came to the Quilisma Consort to focus on early music, and has a degree in music composition from Harvard University.

Lisa Gay (recorders and voice) founded the Quilisma Consort in 2004 to satisfy her addiction to early music. An avid recorder player and fan of Orlando de Lasso since childhood, she has performed in The Christmas Revels in Cambridge and Chicago, and with ensembles such as Calliope, The Masqued Phoenix Consort, and Ars et Amici. She studies recorder with John Tyson.

Carolyn Jean Smith (recorders and voice) received an MA in Early Music from the Longy School. She has performed with Stämbandet, Serendipity and Cantata á Trois and has studied with Ford Weisberg, Sonja Lindblad, and John Tyson. She has performed in several venues, including the Society for Historically Informed Performance Concert Series, and can be heard on Nordic Voices, a CD by Stämbandet under the Nordic Sounds label.

Tom Zajac, guest artist (recorders): A multi-instrumentalist specializing in the medieval and Renaissance periods, Tom Zajac is a member of the wind band Piffaro as well as his own group Ex Umbris. He has recorded and performed in the U.S. and throughout the world as a member or guest with many of America.s leading early music ensembles. He performed in the East Wing of the White House during the Clinton administration, played serpent in a piece by P.D.Q. Bach on A Prairie Home Companion, and his bagpipe (on a recording, of course) awoke the astronauts every morning on a 2001 space shuttle mission. Last year, he played in a 13th-century music-theater project, Le Tournoi de Chauvency, with the French-American company Ensemble Aziman, giving performances in France, Luxembourg, and the U.S. His most recent interest is in learning the beautiful repertory of Ottoman court music, performing with the Boston-based group Dünya. He teaches at Wellesley College.