Piffaro

Members of Piffaro, The Renaissance Band are joined by musicians from the Newberry Consort—an ensemble called "Chicago's gift to early music" by the Boston Globe—in the WRTI Performance Studio to preview music from their upcoming joint concert honoring Isabelle d'Este, a prominent influencer of the Italian Renaissance. WRTI's Susan Lewis is host.

Praised for their "exquisite blending" and "weightless accuracy," (The Washington Post) the three singers of Trio Eos visited WRTI's Performance Studio on Tuesday, May 7th, in advance of their appearance with Piffaro, the Renaissance Band, to sing highlights from Piffaro's concert of Renaissance music celebrating love, lust, and life. WRTI's Susan Lewis is host.

Praised as "remarkable" and "superb" by The New Yorker, the early-music ensemble Sonnambula—a viol consort based in NYC—visited the WRTI 90.1 Performance Studio and played highlights from upcoming concerts with Piffaro, The Renaissance Band and works from a new album of music by 17th-century composer Leonora Duarte. WRTI's Susan Lewis is host.

David Serkin Ludwig, described by The Philadelphia Inquirer as "a composer with something urgent to say," has a new monodrama set to a text by poet Katie Ford, exploring a medieval spiritual practice called "Anchorism." Join us for highlights from The Anchoress a day before its world premiere. WRTI's Susan Lewis hosts the composer, poet, soprano Hyunah Yu, Piffaro, The Renaissance Band, and PRISM Quartet in the WRTI Performance Studio.

Hailed as “radiant” by The New York Times and “ethereal" by Newsweek Polska, the award-winning early music ensemble Peregrina, from Basel, Switzerland, will perform on WRTI in advance of upcoming concerts with Piffaro, the Renaissance Band. 

A local Renaissance band brings its virtuosity to a new recording of music J.S. Bach may have heard.  Piffaro’s CD, Back Before Bach: Musical Journeys, released in July 2017, is the pinnacle of over 35 years of experience.  It’s the climax of countless concerts, the building of Piffaro’s vast collection of early music instruments and its honed concept of sound.

Piffaro, Philadelphia’s Renaissance band, is taking Don Quixote back to his 17th-century roots in a pair of concerts this weekend at the Episcopal Cathedral titled The Musical World of Don Quixote. What might those roots sound like? A lot like ours, says the Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Patrick Stearns. 

A group of Philadelphia-area musicians who share a love of early music, made Renaissance bands new 30 years ago. Their range of instruments? It includes shawms, dulcians, sackbuts, recorders, krumhorns, bagpipes, lutes, guitars, harps, and a variety of percussion.  Earlier this year, the artistic directors of Piffaro, The Renaissance Band provided WRTI's Meridee Duddleston with a glimpse of their musical roots.

Philadelphia theatergoers visiting New York for Shakespeare's Globe on Broadway may stumble upon a surprisingly familiar sight: Priscilla Smith Herreid, a member of the Philadelphia Renaissance wind band Piffaro, playing shawms and bagpipes to accompany the beheadings in Richard III as well as the comic complications of Twelfth Night.  The Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Patrick Stea