Folger Consort with Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble

Over 200 productions and performances with Folger Consort over the past 40 years include the recent Measure + Dido at the Kennedy Center and Napa Valley Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice at Shrathmore, 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. Faculty member of Mount Holyoke College, where he teaches music history and performs 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.

Christopher Kendall is founder of the Folger Consort. He has recently become dean emeritus of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance after serving the two-term limit of 10 years 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 ArtsEngine 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 American Art Museum. Mr. Kendall served as Director of the University of Maryland School of Music from 1996 to 2005 during a period of rapid development at the School 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, and Smithsonian Collection labels.

Baltimore-based cellist, Wade Davis is in high demand as a solo performer and chamber music collaborator. He regularly performs with the Washington Bach Consort, the Folger Consort, as well as his own baroque ensemble, S’amusant, co-founded with Patrick Merrill, harpsichordist, in 2013. Other appearances include Piccolo Spoleto Early Music Festival and The MOJA Festival. Known for wide variety of styles, he’s also featured in popular music concert series such as So Far Sounds Baltimore and has guested with New York-based band Reserved for Rondee and Baltimore-based band Outcalls. Wade maintains a private studio of cello students in both Baltimore and Washington, D.C.