The Food of Love: Songs, Dances and Fancies for Shakespeare

For nearly forty years, the Baltimore Consort has performed to enthusiastic audiences in the United States and abroad. The ensemble's core repertoire is music of the Elizabethan era, songs and consorts from Shakespeare's plays, with a colorful array of instruments including lute, cittern, viols and flutes. In the program "The Food of Love", bagpipes, recorders, whistles, crumhorns and a gemshorn provide further nuances of colour. Shakespeare's plays contain numerous references to the use of dances or songs or his texts make reference to popular music of the time - for example, "It was a Lover and his Lass" by Thomas Morley in "As You Like It".

photo credit: Gary Payne

Elizabethan consort music is a remarkable synthesis of popular taste and humanistic eloquence that lent vitality to Shakespearean theater by appealing to every kind of audience member, from the simple country bumpkin who could hum along to his favorite ballad to the sophisticated gallant who could delight in the rich harmonies and embroideries that surrounded the melody (Sydney Beck).

The Baltimore Consort
Mary Anne Ballard - treble and bass viol | Mark Cudek - cittern, bass viol | Larry Lipkis - bass viol, recorder, crumhorn, gemshorn | Ronn McFarlane - lute | Mindy Rosenfeld - lutes, whistles, bagpipes, crumhorn | Danielle Svonavec - soprano

“Few early music players have more fun making music than the Baltimore six, who through their performances, take the position that echos of renaissance secular music are still to be found in modern folk practice.”  (The New Yorker)