Kings and Commonwealth

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.

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.

Risa Browder (Violin and Viola), whose playing The Washington Post has called “flavorful and expressive”, grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. Asked at age three if she would like to learn the violin, she answered her parents with an emphatic, “Yes!” She’s been playing ever since, nowadays focusing on historically informed performance on violin, viola, viola d’amore, and occasionally treble and tenor viols. She trained at Oberlin Conservatory, the Royal College of Music (London, UK), and the Schola Cantorum (Basel, Switzerland), studying with some of the great pioneers of the HP movement: Marilyn McDonald, Catherine Mackintosh, and Jaap Schroeder. Having completed her studies, she began her musical career in Europe playing and recording with groups like the Academy of Ancient Music, the English Concert, and Les Musiciens du Louvre, among others. 

Mark Cudek (Cittern) is a Professor at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University and the former Chair of Peabody’s Historical Performance Department. He is also Artistic Director of the Indianapolis Early Music Festival and a founding member of the Baltimore Consort. In recognition of his work as Founder/Director of the Peabody Renaissance Ensemble and the High School Early Music Program at the Interlochen Arts Camp, Mark received from Early Music America the 2001 Thomas Binkley Award and the 2005 Award for Outstanding Contribution to Early Music Education. Mark is the 2014 recipient of the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association’s Global Achievement Award.

Amy Domingues (Instrumentalist) is an ardent performer, whether it be on the cello, viola da gamba, baryton or vielle. Her early career honed her ensemble skills as a session cellist, recording and touring with rock and experimental bands in the USA, Europe, and Japan. Later, armed with a relentless interest in music history, Amy turned her focus to the viola da gamba and baroque cello. She holds a master’s degree in Historical Performance (Viola da Gamba) from the Peabody Institute and has performed in masterclasses for Wieland Kuijken, Paolo Pandolfo, and Philippe Pierlot.

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.

Dan Meyers (Recorder, percussion, bagpipes) A versatile multi-instrumentalist, Dan Meyers is a flexible and engaging performer of both classical and folk music; his credits range from premieres of contemporary chamber music, to headlining a concert series in honor of Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival, to playing Renaissance instruments on Broadway for Shakespeare’s Globe. He is a founding member of the early music/folk crossover group Seven Times Salt, and in recent seasons he has performed with the Newberry Consort, Hesperus, the Henry Purcell Society of Boston, Early Music New York, Amherst Early Music, 21st Century Consort, In Stile Moderno, and the Cambridge Revels, making concert and theatrical appearances in New York City, Washington, DC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Memphis, Santa Fe, at the Yellow Barn Summer Festival in Vermont, and at the “La Luna e i Calanchi” festival in Basilicata (Italy).

Emily Noël (Soprano) performs a wide variety of repertory expanding from the Medieval to the contemporary. Favorite Folger performances include: Gloria!, Davenant’s Macbeth, Second Shepherds’ Play, An English Garden, Play of Love, Measure + Dido, The Merchant of Venice, Christmas in New Spain, and Map of the World. She has also appeared as a soloist with the Washington Bach Consort, Washington National Cathedral, LyricFest, Ente Concerti Città di Iglesias, Amsterdam Grachtenfestival, American Opera Theater, Mountainside Baroque, Seven Times Salt, Early Interval, and Santa Fe Desert Chorale. A passionate educator, Emily has served on the faculties of Franklin & Marshall College, Notre Dame of Maryland University, and The Community College of Rhode Island. She currently teaches voice at Denison University and directs the Cardinal Singers at Otterbein University.

Described as a “commanding” singer by the Boston Globe, Peter Walker has performed with the Handel + Haydn Society, Chapter House, GRAMMY-nominated Skylark Ensemble, Kuhmo Kamarimusiiki, Staunton Music Festival, Early Music Access Project, Three Notch’d Road, Blue Heron, Pomerium, and GRAMMY-nominated Clarion Society Choir. Peter is a member of the United States Army Chorus, has presented lectures on early music at Vassar College and Case Western, and serves as cantor at the National Shrine of St. Alphonsus Liguori. He won the Overseas Class in the Lowland and Border Pipers’ Society Competition in 2016, and is active as a researcher, transcriber, and arranger of music ranging from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. Peter holds degrees from Vassar College and McGill University, where he studied with Drew Minter and Sanford Sylvan.

Cameron Welke (Lute) spends most of his time explaining to well-meaning strangers that the lute is, in fact, quite a different instrument from the flute. He brings a passionate curiosity and a deep creative drive to all manner of historical plucked instruments, which he plays with “expert technical dexterity, consummate phrasing and endearing expressivity” (Chestnut Hill Local). Past and current engagements include performances with the Washington Bach Consort, Tempesta di Mare, the Folger Consort, the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Three Notch’d Road, and Hesperus. In 2022, he gave the first lute masterclasses to ever take place in the Dominican Republic through La Fundación de la Villa de Santo Domingo. He explores repertoire for two baroque lutes in Duo Silvio with duo partner Richard Stone, and is a co-founder of the early music collective Magdalena.