The Love Birds

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.

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.

Crossley Hawn (Soprano) has served as a soloist with ensembles including Folger Consort, Cathedra, the Washington Bach Consort, The Thirteen, the City Choir of Washington, Chatham Baroque, Choralis, the Reston Chorale, Maryland Choral Society, and University of Maryland Summer Chorus. Hawn was the winner of the 2018 Choralis Young Artists Competition. In addition to her solo work, Hawn is an active ensemble singer. She is a member of Eya Medieval Music and has also appeared chorally with the US Air Force Band’s Singing Sergeants, Kinnara, True Concord, EXO Choir, Chorosynthesis, Chantry, and The District Eight. She has performed worldwide in Italy, Canada, Switzerland, France, England, Germany, Austria, and Hungary. She is an Artistic Director of Bridge, a professional vocal chamber ensemble specializing in new works for voices. Hawn served as project manager and ensemble singer for Experiential Orchestra’s Grammy-winning premiere recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison.

Brian Kay (Medieval lute, citole) is a modern-day troubadour. He is the Artistic Director of the early music meets early theater group THEATRO, and is currently overseeing their international recording of music from the plays of William Shakespeare. He won a GRAMMY® Award for his work on Apollo’s Fire’s Songs of Orpheus with tenor Karim Sulayman. He works as a musician and recording artist for the Netflix music lab and is a featured soloist on the soundtrack of Netflix original series The Witcher. He has performed worldwide, including Folger Consort, the National Concert Hall of Dublin, Belfast Castle (Northern Ireland), Carnegie Hall, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. His live radio appearances include NPR, Baltimore’s WYPR and WIYY (98ROCK), Boston’s WGBH, and Cleveland’s WCLV. A multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, arranger, and a traditional and historical music specialist, he has recorded with labels Avie Records and Sono Luminus.

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).

Margot Rood (Soprano) hailed for her “sterling, gleaming tone and magnificent control” (The Washington Post), performs a wide range of repertoire. 2024-25 performances include her debuts with Folger Consort and Repast Baroque, as well as return appearances with the Washington Bach Consort, Blue Heron, Handel & Haydn Society, and True Concord Voices & Orchestra. Recent solo appearances include those with Toronto’s Tafelmusik BaFebroque Orchestra, Edinburgh’s Dunedin Consort, South Florida’s Enlightenment Festival, the Washington Bach Consort, the Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony, the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, Handel & Haydn Society, TENET Vocal Artists, Seraphic Fire, Bach Collegium San Diego, A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra, and numerous concerts with acclaimed ensemble Blue Heron.

Kristen Dubenion-Smith (Mezzosoprano) Recognized for her “velvety legato and embracing warmth of sound” (Washington Classical Review) and “lyric-mezzo of uncommon beauty” (Washington Post), mezzo soprano Kristen Dubenion-Smith enjoys an active career performing oratorio and sacred vocal chamber music, specializing in music of the medieval, renaissance, and baroque eras. As a concert soloist, Kristen has earned recognition for her performances of Bach and Handel. Recent highlights include Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, Handel’s Esther with Opera Lafayette, and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Washington Bach Consort. Ms. Dubenion-Smith also sings on the 2021 Grammy winning recording of The Prison by Ethel Smyth with the Experiential Orchestra. 2024–2025 season highlights include Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Washington Bach Consort, Mozart’s Requiem with the Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, Durufle Requiem with Choralis, and debuts with The Thirteen, Variant 6, and Musica Spira.

Juri Seo is a Korean American composer and pianist based in Princeton, New Jersey. She seeks to write music that encompasses extreme contrast through compositions that are unified and fluid, yet complex. She merges many of the fascinating aspects of music from the past century with a deep love of functional tonality, counterpoint, and classical form. Her composition honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Koussevitzky Commission from the Library of Congress, a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship and the Andrew Imbrie Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship, Copland House Residency Award, the Ilshin Composer Prize, and the Otto Eckstein Fellowship from Tanglewood. She has received commissions from the Fromm Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, the Goethe Institut, and the Tanglewood Music Center. Her portrait albums Mostly Piano and Respiri were released by Innova Recordings. She is Associate Professor of Music at Princeton University.

Mary Springfels (Vielle and citole) is a veteran of the American Early Music Movement. She is a native of Los Angeles and moved to New York at the age of 21 to join New York Pro Musica as their viola da gambist. From that time on, Mary has been an active participant in prominent early music ensembles, including Folger Consort, the Waverly Consort, Concert Royal, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Ars Lyrica Houston, and the Texas Early Music Project (Austin). Mary directed the Newberry Consort in Chicago for 20 years, during which time the group made a number of critically-acclaimed recordings. She has also been a continuo player for the Chicago Opera Theater, Central City Opera, and the New York City Opera. Currently, she is a co-director of Severall Friends, an early music ensemble based in Santa Fe. Mary teaches all over the country

Holly Twyford (Narrator) is excited to return to the Folger Shakespeare Library. She is proud to have performed in seventeen Folger Theatre productions, including a previous collaboration with Robert Eisenstein and the Folger Consort in Mary Hall Surface’s adaptation of The Second Shepherds’ Play. Holly has performed in over eighty productions in theaters in the Washington, DC area including Studio Theatre, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Theatre J, and Signature Theatre. A five-time Helen Hayes Award recipient, Holly was also honored with Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Emery Battis Award for Acting Excellence for her portrayal of Anna in Harold Pinter’s Old Times. She is proud to be a charter member of Studio Theatre’s Cabinet, a Ford’s Theatre Associate Artist, a Lunt-Fontanne Fellow, and especially a DC-based artist.