Kings and Commonwealth: Political music of 16th and 17th century England
Early Music Seminar

Booking and details
Dates Wed, Apr 30, 2025 at 6pm ET
Tickets $10 with discounts for Folger Members and Subscribers
Folger Consort Artistic Director Robert Eisenstein leads a lively virtual seminar that offers a sneak peek at the music performed in the Folger Consort’s upcoming Kings and Commonwealth: Political music of 16th and 17th century England with special guest Alastair Bellany, Professor of History, Rutgers University.
Creative team

Robert Eisenstein
Robert Eisenstein has led over 200 productions and performances with Folger Consort over the past 40 years include Measure + Dido at the Kennedy Center 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. 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; former faculty member of Mount Holyoke College, where he taught music history and performed the viola de gamba, violin, and medieval fiddle. He is an active participant in the 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.

Alastair Bellany
Alastair Bellany
Professor of History, Rutgers University
- Degree: Ph.D., Princeton University B.A. (First Class Honours), Oxford University
- Rutgers : At Rutgers Since 1996
- Specialty: Early Modern British Isles: Political and Media History, Climate and Environmental History
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