DATE
Contact: Shannon Cline, Executive Director
[email protected]
June 15, 2015
215-235-8469 (office)
859-619-1751 (cell)
The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Awards $150,000 Grant to Piffaro, The Renaissance Band, in Support of
The Musical World of Don Quixote
Philadelphia, PA – The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage has announced that Piffaro, The Renaissance Band has been
awarded one of its highly competitive grants to support the presentation of The Musical World of Don Quixote.
Using the wealth of musical references found in Miguel de Cervantes’ four-century-old classic novel, artistic
directors Joan Kimball and Robert Wiemken and project director Grant Herreid will construct a program that
illuminates Golden Age Spain and brings audiences into Cervantes’ captivating world.
Piffaro will bring a roster of luminaries to Philadelphia for a mini-festival of performances and events on October 8
and 9, 2016. Guest artists who will share the stage include vocal quartet New York Polyphony, soprano Nell
Snaidas, guitarist Charles Weaver, and percussionist Glen Velez. A symposium at the University of Pennsylvania’s
Kislak Center for Rare Books and Manuscripts will feature Edith Grossman, whose 2003 translation of Don Quixote
is considered one of the finest in the English language, along with a panel of international experts on the music,
visual art, literary culture, and politics of Golden Age Spain. To complement the performances, The Rosenbach of
the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Kislak Center will exhibit their priceless first editions of Don Quixote and
other 17th century materials.
The two-year, $150,000 grant is unique in providing support not only for the performances and related activities, but
also for a full year of research and development, as well as for project documentation. Kimball, Wiemken, and
Herreid will travel to Spain to research primary sources, visit churches and cathedrals where there was significant
activity by professional wind band players, and visit sites referenced in the novel. Noted choreographer Christopher
Williams will observe Piffaro’s performances in the prior season, and work with the musicians to create movement
and staging that enhances the music and the arc of the program. A multimedia, interactive Google “gallery” will
document the entire project from inception to completion and be widely available for enjoyment and study. In the
meantime, Kimball and Wiemken will maintain a blog that brings fans along throughout the entire creative process.
Call 215-235-8469, email [email protected], or visit www.piffaro.org for more information.
View the complete list of 2015 grant recipients: http://goo.gl/AI8Pa4
Read the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage press release: http://goo.gl/AdHv5r
About The Pew Center for Arts &Heritage
The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is a multidisciplinary grantmaker and hub for knowledge
sharing, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, and dedicated to fostering a vibrant cultural
community in Greater Philadelphia. The Center fulfills this mission by investing in ambitious,
imaginative arts and heritage projects that showcase the region’s cultural vitality and enhance
public life, and by engaging in an exchange of ideas concerning artistic and interpretive practice
with a broad network of cultural leaders. For more information, visit pcah.us.
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About Piffaro, The Renaissance Band
“Widely regarded as North America's masters of music for Renaissance
wind band” (St Paul Pioneer Press), Piffaro has delighted audiences
throughout the world since its founding in 1980. Piffaro recreates the rustic
music of the peasantry and the elegant sounds of the official wind bands of
the late Medieval and Renaissance periods. Its ever-expanding
instrumentarium includes shawms, dulcians, sackbuts, recorders, krumhorns,
bagpipes, lutes, guitars, harps, and a variety of percussion — all careful
reconstructions of instruments from the period. Under the direction of
Artistic Directors Joan Kimball and Bob Wiemken, the “pied-pipers of Early
Music” present an annual subscription concert series in the Philadelphia
region; tour throughout the United States, Europe, Canada and South
America; and appear as performers and instructors at major Early Music
festivals. Recordings are a significant part of the ensemble’s work, and 18 CDs have been released since 1992,
including 4 on the prestigious label Deutsche Grammophon / Archiv Produktion. Piffaro has been active in the field
of education since its inception and was honored for its work by Early Music America in 2011 with the Laurette
Goldberg “Lifetime Achievement Award in Early Music Outreach.” Piffaro can regularly be heard on American
Public Media’s Performance Today and WWFM’s Distant Mirror.
“The American ensemble appealed immediately with its fresh unburdened style of music making that didn’t make
one think of scholarly treatises on medieval music, but that involved the audience in a spontaneous experience
onstage.”
Die Welt (Berlin)
Piffaro, The Renaissance Band
Joan Kimball, Artistic Director
Robert Wiemken, Artistic Director
Grant Herreid
Priscilla Herreid
Greg Ingles
Christa Patton
Tom Zajac
About New York Polyphony
Praised for a “rich, natural sound that’s larger and more complex than the sum of
its parts,” (National Public Radio) New York Polyphony is regarded as one of the
finest vocal chamber ensembles in the world. The four men, “singers of superb
musicianship and vocal allure,” (The New Yorker) apply a modern touch to
repertoire that ranges from austere medieval melodies to cutting-edge
contemporary compositions. Their dedication to innovative programming, as well
as a focus on rare and rediscovered Renaissance and medieval works, has not only
earned New York Polyphony critical acclaim, but also helped to move early music
into the classical mainstream.
The ensemble’s growing discography includes two GRAMMY®-nominated releases and albums that have topped
the “best of” lists of The New Yorker, Gramophone, and BBC Music Magazine. Called a “spacious, radiant retreat”
by The New York Times, their current release, Sing thee Nowell, scored New York Polyphony its second
GRAMMY® nomination in the Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance category.
Recent engagements include a debut performance at London’s Wigmore Hall, residencies at Dartmouth College and
Stanford University, a broadcast holiday event for Minnesota Public Radio, and the European premiere of the Missa
Charles Darwin—a newly commissioned secular Mass setting based on texts of Charles Darwin by composer
Gregory Brown—at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany. In 2013, New York Polyphony participated in
the New York premiere of Jonathan Berger’s chamber opera cycle Visitations at the PROTOTYPE Festival.
Future engagements include appearances at the Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Abvlensis International Music
Festival, and a debut at The Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
NEW YORK POLYPHONY is:
Geoffrey Williams, countertenor
Steven Caldicott Wilson, tenor
Christopher Dylan Herbert, baritone
Craig Phillips, bass
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