Folger Consort

Folger Consort is the early music ensemble-in-residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Founding Artistic Directors Robert Eisenstein and Christopher Kendall create musical programs from the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods. The Consort performs concerts in the ensemble’s home, the Folger’s Elizabethan Theatre, the Washington National Cathedral, and the Music Center at Strathmore, and brings internationally noted guest artists to Washington, D.C. to join in its “early music chamber society.”

Beyond its concert series, Folger Consort strives to deepen audiences’ understanding and appreciation of early music through seminars, discussions, recordings, radio broadcasts, and unique collaborations with other programs of the Folger Shakespeare Library. Folger Consort won the Best Classical Chamber Ensemble award from the Washington Area Music Awards in 2006, and every year from 2008-2012.

Founders

Robert Eisenstein

Robert Eisenstein is a founding member and the program director of Folger Consort. In addition to his work with the Consort, he is the director of the Five College Early Music Program in western Massachusetts, where he teaches music history, performs regularly on viola da gamba, violin, and medieval fiddle, and coordinates and directs student performances of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music. He is an active participant in Five College Medieval Studies with a particular interest in the use of computer technology in the service of music.

Eisenstein has performed with many ensembles including the Washington Bach Consort, the Newberry Consort, the National Symphony Orchestra, Western Wind, and recently at Tanglewood, Amherst Early Music, and other summer festivals. He studied viola da gamba with Judith Davidoff and Richard Taruskin.

Christopher Kendall

Christopher Kendall is the founder of Folger Consort. Kendall has been the Dean of the School of Music, Theatre & Dance at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor since 2005, where he has launched a university-wide initiative recognizing the fundamental role of the all the arts in the human condition and in human culture called "Arts on Earth."

From 1996 to 2005, he was Director of the School of Music at the University of Maryland, during a period of significant institutional growth related to the building of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Associate Conductor of the Seattle Symphony from 1987 to 1992 and Director of the Music Division and Tanglewood Institute of the Boston University School for the Arts from 1993 to 1996, Kendall is also Artistic Director, founder and conductor of the 21st Century Consort, the new music ensemble-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution.

Kendall has guest-conducted many professional orchestras and ensembles from San Francisco to New York, in repertoire from the 18th to the 21st centuries. His recordings can be heard on the Bard, Delos, Nonesuch, Centaur, ASV, Arabesque, Innova, and Smithsonian Collection labels.

Recordings

Folger Consort recordings are available for purchase online through CD Baby.

Current season

Folger Consort 2017-2018

Past seasons

2010s

2000s

1990s

  • A French Noel 1999
  • Italia Mia 1999
  • Byrd Songs: Music of William Byrd 1999
  • Tastes and Sensibility 1999
  • Heartsease: A Medieval Valentine 1999
  • Monteverdi 1610 Vespers 1999
  • Navidad! A New World Christmas 1998
  • A Book of Hours 1998
  • Like as the Lute 1998
  • Map of the World 1998
  • La Chant d'Amour 1998
  • Hildegard: Hymns and Sequence 1998
  • A Canterbury Christmas 1997
  • Dance of Death 1997
  • Alpine Airs 1997
  • The Lark 1997
  • Illuminations 1997
  • Ordo Virtutum: The Play of the Virtues 1997
  • Celestial Brass 1996
  • Political Fortunes 1996
  • Calliope's Daughters 1996
  • Springtime in Paris 1996
  • Fantasia with Scott Reiss 1996
  • Al-Andalus 1996
  • An Old English Christmas 1995
  • Pastime with Good Company 1995
  • Oktoberfest 1995
  • Come Again, Sweet Love 1995
  • Dido & Aeneus 1995
  • Musical Revolutions 1995
  • A Medieval Tapestry 1995
  • A Christmas Concerto 1994
  • Playing with Fire 1994
  • Wild Thyme 1994
  • The Dragon of Wantley 1994
  • Dances of Dowland 1994
  • Brilliance of the Italian Baroque 1994
  • A Renaissance Valentine' 1994
  • Mysteries of Machaut 1994