Album Notes

The Festival Consort

Douglas Mandell - tenor, recorder, crumhorn, sackbut, gittern, drum
Carol Menke - soprano
Alan Paul - shawm, recorder, crumhorn
David Hogan Smith - shawm, recorder, crumhorn, sackbut
Joanna Bramel Young - shawm, recorder, crumhorn, curtal

with

Lyn Elder - bass, recorder, sackbut, hurdy-gurdy
Jonathan Harris - cornett
Kristine Holmes - cornett, recorder
Suzanne Elder-Wallace - alto

The Festival Consort was founded in 1977 by Lyn Elder and Joanna Bramel Young to play at the Northern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire. From there the ensemble began performing vocal and instrumental music of 14th, 15th, and early 16th century Europe. In the 1980s the group was chosen by Columbia Artists to tour the United States with Community Concerts. Over the years the Consort has performed at colleges and universities as well as for many festive occasions throughout northern California. In the 1990s the ensemble expanded into a typical Renaissance wind band, adding cornetts, sackbuts, and curtal in order to explore the great five- and six-part
works written for those instruments.

Members of the Consort have researched and arranged most of the works on their programs. One of the members of the group, David Hogan Smith, has carefully adjusted, tuned, and made reeds for all of the double-reed instruments used by the group. For almost thirty years the Festival Consort has played annual Christmas concerts, where traditional carols accompanied by gittern, lute, and recorders alternate with loud and soft consorts of shawms, recorders, and crumhorns. This CD contains a collection of many of their favorite pieces for the Christmas season.

Recorded at St. Stephen’s Church, Belvedere, California
Producers: Joanna Bramel Young, David Hogan Smith
Recording Engineers: Mark Nemoyten of Hear and Now Audio, Douglas Mandell