Music:
Member Since: 12/06/2006
Band Website: piffaro.org
Band Members:
Grant Herreid: lute, Renaissance guitar, vihuela, recorders, shawm, percussion
Greg Ingles: sackbut, recorder, krumhorn, percussion
Joan Kimball: shawm, recorders, bagpipes, capped reeds
Christa Patton: harp, shawm, bagpipe, recorder, capped reeds
Robert Wiemken: shawm, dulcian, recorders, capped reeds, rackett, percussion
Tom Zajac: sackbut, recorders, bagpipes, hurdy gurdy, pipe & tabor, harp, percussion
Originally a trumpet player from Portland, Grant Herreid is now a versatile musician/director/teacher on the early music scene. As a multi-instrumentalist and singer he performs frequently on winds, strings and voice with Hesperus and Piffaro, and he plays theorbo and lute with New York City Opera and the baroque ensemble Artek. He teaches at Mannes College of Music and directs the New York Continuo Collective.
Grant has created and directed several theatrical early music shows, including 'Il Caffe d'Amore', a pastiche of early 17th century Italian songs and arias, and the 15th century English 'Holly and Ivy: A Mid-Winter Feast of Fools'. For the Amherst Early Music Festival he has created and directed 'A Day At The Faire', an Elizabethan rustic music-drama; an early 17th century production of Guarini's 'Il Pastor Fido'; and 'The Ballet of the Twelve Nations: Prelude to the Thirty Years War', an early 17th century German production featuring alchemy and intrigue. But mostly he devotes his time to exploring the art of the cantastorie and other esoteric unwritten traditions of early Renaissance music with the group Ex Umbris.
Greg Ingles received his Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin Conservatory. Immediately following Oberlin, Greg held the position of solo trombone with the Hofer Symphoniker in Hof, Germany.
After studying with Wim Becu and Charles Toet, Greg was inspired to focus on aspects of historical performance. He is in demand as a freelance sackbut player performing with such period ensembles as Tafelmusik, New York Collegium, Trinity Consort, American Bach Soloists, the Orchestra of the Renaissance, the Violins of Lafayette, Ensemble Rebel, New York s Ensemble for Early Music, Boston Shawm and Sackbut Ensemble, San Francisco Bach Choir and ARTEK. In addition to his performing schedule, Greg is currently completing doctoral work at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is professor of trombone at Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY where he also conducts the brass ensemble.
Joan Kimball, co-director and a founding member of the ensemble, turned to early music performance full time after a number of years as an educator. Since education is still one of her passions, Joan teaches recorder and early winds mostly to children, guaranteeing a new generation of early music performers. She is on the music faculty of The Philadelphia School, an elementary and middle school, where she has a full roster of private students and coaches recorder ensembles as well as a newly formed Renaissance bagpipe band.
In addition, she collaborates with instrument maker Joel Robinson of New York City on the construction of Medieval and Renaissance bagpipes, and teaches bagpipe classes at summer music workshops. She has also performed with New York's Ensemble for Early Music, The Philadelphia Classical Symphony, The Brandywine Baroque Orchestra and with numerous instrumental and vocal ensembles in the Philadelphia area. In addition to her recordings with Piffaro on Newport Classics, Deutsche Grammophon Archiv Produktion, and Dorian, she can also be heard on Vanguard Classical and Vox Amadeus.
Christa Patton: Originally a classically trained oboist, Christa has since turned multi-instrumentalist and performs on a variety of Renaissance and baroque wind and string instruments. She has toured the U.S., Europe and Japan since 1993 with New York's Ensemble for Early Music, Piffaro, and Ex Umbris.
As a baroque harpist, Christa has performed in New York City with Artek, as well as with the Toronto Consort, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, New York City Opera at Lincoln Center and The Wolf Trap Opera Company. Christa has also been a regular member of Linda Russell and Company, specializing in the historical performance of early American Music. Christa can be heard on the Dorian, Lyrachord and Helicon labels.
Robert Wiemken, a French hornist for many years before turning to early music and period instrument performance, is now a multi-instrumentalist, focusing on the double reed instruments of the Medieval through the Baroque periods, most notably the Renaissance and early Baroque dulcian, or curtal, and the Baroque bassoon. He is currently co-director of Piffaro, and also directs the early music ensembles at Temple University..s Esther Boyer College of Music in Philadelphia.
He has performed with numerous ensembles, including New York's Ensemble for Early Music, the Grande Band, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, the Philadelphia Classical Symphony, Brandywine Baroque Orchestra, the Folger Consort and others. He has recorded on the Newport Classics, Deutsche Grammophon Archiv Produktion, Dorian Records, Vanguard Classics, Windham Hill and Pasacaille labels. He is also a noted reed maker, specializing in the double reeds of the medieval through Baroque periods.
Tom Zajac specializes in late-medieval and Renaissance music, and has been praised by critics both here and abroad for his exceptional versatility, performing fluently on a variety of early instruments. He is a member of the musical-theatrical group Ex Umbris and is a frequent guest with the Folger Consort. In addition he has appeared with the Violins of Lafayette, King's Noyse, Newberry Consort, Anonymous 4, Waverly Consort, Concert Royal, and New York's Ensemble for Early Music.
He can be heard on a number of major US and European labels in over 30 recordings, ranging from medieval dance to baroque opera and contemporary folk-rock. He has played hurdy gurdy in a work choreographed by Twyla Tharp for American Ballet Theater, bagpipe for a Gatorade commercial, and serpent in a work by Peter Schickele for the 2000 Christmas edition of NPR's A Prairie Home Companion. The sound of his bagpipe awoke the astronauts every morning on a recent space shuttle mission.
With Ex Umbris, Tom performed in the East Room of the White House, and can be heard on two PBS specials, "Exploring the World of Music" for PBS educational television and the Ric Burns documentary on the history of New York. Tom teaches at recorder and early music workshops throughout the US, is on the faculty of the University of Maryland, College Park, and the Amherst Early Music Festival, and directs the community-based ensemble Trinitas in Philadelphia, where he resides.
Record Label: Deutsche Grammophon and Dorian Records
