Piffaro November 4, 2007 This rollicking Renaissance ensemble from Philadelphia brings a multitude of ancient instruments to each performance. Their program The Waits of London begins with the lusty music of the street musicians of medieval London and progresses to the transcendent works of such masters as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, Anthony Holborne, and Thomas Weelkes. Experience The late Medieval and Renaissance periods seem to live on when you listen to Piffaro. The sextet recreates the sound of professional wind bands and amateur entertainments from 14th to 17th-century Europe. Together or separately, recorders, bagpipes, shawms and sackbuts produce raucous, rustic and haunting sounds. The music’s oft-startling rhythms and vibrant sonorities make ancient pleasures timeless. Songs of laughter or tragedy, pageants and liturgical dramas with musicians in costume are performed by instrumentalists and singers trained at Oberlin College, the Rotterdam Conservatory, Milan’s Scuola Civica di Musica and the Mannes College of Music. History Joan Kimball, an expert on bagpipes, and Robert Wiemken, director of early music ensembles at Temple University, began The Philadelphia Renaissance Wind Band in 1980. In 1995, with the release of Canzoni e Danze for Deutsche Grammophon’s Archiv division, the ensemble changed its name to Piffaro, The Renaissance Band. An impressive discography includes recordings for DG/Archiv, Dorian Recordings, Windham Hill and Newport Classics. Piffaro made its European debut at the Tage Alter Musik Regensburg in 1993. It has toured Amsterdam, Austria, Belgium, England, France, Italy, Spain and Columbia, South America. (from www.gophila.com)