This year, we celebrate the 50th season of Folger Consort, the early music ensemble-in-residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Under the artistic leadership of Robert Eisenstein and Christopher Kendall, the award-winning Folger Consort has created opportunities to discover and enjoy music from the medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods since its founding in 1977.
Below, explore photos, recordings, and a timeline of the Consort’s 50 years.
We invite you to the return to this page throughout the season as we share more of Folger Consort’s storied history.
The golden anniversary season at a glance:
- the musical innovations of composer Claudio Monteverdi in early 17th-century Venice
- a wide-ranging program of English holiday music from medieval to modern wintry soundscapes
- global music from West African, Arabic, and European musical storytelling traditions
- a jubilee concert that returns to some of the favorite composers and songs performed on the Folger stage 50 years ago during the Consort’s inaugural season
Folger Consort artistic leadership
Robert Eisenstein
Robert Eisenstein, Artistic Director (bass viol)
Robert Eisenstein has led over 200 productions and performances with Folger Consort over the past 40 years, including Measure + Dido at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Napa Valley Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice at Strathmore, The Fairy Queen, and Hildegard Von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum at the Washington National Cathedral. Recently retired as the Director of the Five College Early Music Program; Music Director for the Five College Opera Project production of Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero; Mount Holyoke College faculty emeritus, where he taught music history and performed on the viola de gamba, violin, and medieval fiddle. He is an active participant in Five College Medieval Studies. Recipient of Early Music America’s Thomas Binkley Award for outstanding achievement in performance and scholarship by the director of a college early music ensemble.
Christopher Kendall
Christopher Kendall is founder of the Folger Consort. He is dean emeritus of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance after serving two terms as the school’s dean, where he was responsible for establishing the University of Michigan Gershwin Initiative, for re-instituting international touring, for the funding and design of a $30M expansion/renovation of the music building, and for launching the interdisciplinary enterprise ArtEngine and its national initiative a2ru (Alliance for the Arts at Research Universities). In Washington, in addition to his work with Folger Consort, since 1975 he has been Artistic Director and conductor of the 21st Century Consort, the new music ensemble-in-residence at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Mr. Kendall served as Director of the University of Maryland School of Music from 1996 to 2005 during a period of rapid development and its move to 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, Mr. Kendall has guest conducted many orchestras and ensembles in repertoire from the 18th to the 21st centuries. His recordings can be heard on the Bard, Delos, Nonesuch, Centaur, ASV, Arabesque, Innova, Bridge, and Smithsonian Collection labels.
Due to the passion and commitment of Bob and Christopher, our audiences have gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of the various traditions of European early music. Through their five remarkable decades here, the Consort has established the Folger as a premier venue for early music performance.
Folger Director Dr. Farah Karim-Cooper
Timeline
Expand to see a timeline of key events and notable performances in the history of Folger Consort.
1977
Folger Consort opens its first season with the program England: Chapel and Chamber Music, 1400–1600.
1979
The Folger hosts its first annual Shakespeare’s Birthday Open House, and the day prior National Public Radio (NPR) broadcasts a live performance by the Folger Consort.
1980
Folger Consort releases its first recording, Shakespeare’s Music, on the Delos label.
1988
Folger Consort presents Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum at the Washington National Cathedral, establishing a tradition of Consort performances in this national landmark.
1989
Folger Consort launches its own record label, Bard Records.
2001
Folger Consort and the Folger Institute collaborate in the production of John Milton’s masque Comus, an effort resulting in a two-day scholarly conference and multiple performances in the Folger’s Elizabethan-styled Theatre.
2007
Actors Lynn Redgrave, Richard Clifford, and Sir Derek Jacobi read passages from A Midsummer Night’s Dream during Folger Consort’s performance of The Fairy Queen, Henry Purcell’s magical 1691 semi-opera based on Shakespeare’s comedy.
2007
Folger Consort stages the early English drama The Second Shepherds’ Play, complemented by a Folger Institute conference on the topic. The play becomes the subject of the first-ever Folger podcast and is revived for the holiday season in 2016.
2010
Folger Consort’s performance of Tempest features a baroque orchestra and vocalists performing music inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest, as well as readings from the play by actors Sir Derek Jacobi, Richard Clifford, and Holly Twyford.
2014
A live recording of the 2013 concert Christmas in New Spain: Early Music of Mexico and Peru is released, marking Folger Consort’s most recent album.
2016
Folger Consort presents Measure+Dido, featuring actors Sir Derek Jacobi and Richard Clifford, at the Napa Valley Arts Performing Center, the Kennedy Center, and the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe. Inspired by a 1699 adaptation of Measure for Measure, or Beauty the Best Advocate by Charles Gildon staged in Restoration London, this concert pairs the music of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with passages from Shakespeare’s play.
2018
Folger Theatre and Folger Consort produce Davenant’s Macbeth, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy by Sir William Davenant, with music by John Eccles and others. Set in a historic London asylum, this groundbreaking production blends Davenant’s 17th-century adaptation with period music performed by Folger Consort.
2020
Folger Consort gives its final pre-pandemic concert in March: The Three Fountains: Music for Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, featuring musical settings of texts by the great Italian poets.
2020-2023
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Folger Consort shares filmed recordings of concerts with its audiences and eventually begins holding in-person concerts at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Capitol Hill, down the block from the Folger Shakespeare Library, which is under renovation.
2024
Folger Consort returns home to the Elizabethan-styled Theatre as the Folger Shakespeare Library partially reopens in the last stages of the building renovation. Its first concert after several years away is Music and Satire: From the Writings of Rabelais.
2026
Folger Consort begins its 50th season.
Folger Consort recordings
Below we’ve shared a sampling of Folger Consort recordings over the decades that are available for listening on Spotify. You can also purchase CDs for a few of the albums through the Folger Shop.
Sing Heigh, Ho! Unto the Green Holly! (2009)
The Tempest (2008)
A Medieval Christmas (2007)
This England: Music from the time of Shakespeare (2007)
Alpine Airs: Music of Switzerland, 13th-16th Centuries (1997)
Playing with Fire: The Art of the Renaissance Instrumentalist (1995)
Divisions on an Ayre: Lute Songs and Instrumental Music circa 1600 (1991)
