By means of our tenacious endeavour studying, researching and performing the lute song repertoire and by the development of our singular approach to it, we strive to make justice to its great historical and artistic significance.
We specialised on the voice-lute repertory during our studies at the conservatories of The Hague and Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and started our career as a professional duo soon after our graduation. Since then we have carried out an intense international concert activity.
Awarded with an honorific mention at the “Alte Musik Treff” Berlin 2005, we have performed extensively in The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, England, France and Germany. We have given concerts at the “Antonio de Cabezón Early Music Week” (Burgos, Spain), Leicester Early Music Festival (England), Midis-Minimes (Belgium) and in August 2007 we will be performing at the opening of the Utrecht Early Music Festival (The Netherlands).Our first commercial CD with songs by John Dowland and his comtemporaries will be released in November 2007 by the label Musica Ficta.
Widening our activities to the fields of medieval, baroque and contemporary music, we have collaborated with numerous ensembles; Wolkenstein Ensemble, Sjantoon Kamerkoor, Alkan Ensemble, Parnaso Lirico, Kamerkoor Vier bij Vier, Globus Ensemble, Monteverdi Kamerkoor and Ensemble Barcelona Nova Musica with whom we have performed at the A•devantgarde Contemporary Music Festival (Munich, Germany).
Gradually finding its way into the European courts of the renaissance, the lute was considered the most emblematic instrument of its age. Singularly endowed to accompany the voice, this combination inspired the raise of a vast corpus of ravishing songs. The great variety of languages, poets, composers, styles and folk influences defined the great richness of this repertoire.
By offering nowadays our eloquent and captivating interpretations of these songs, we seduce the listener with the diversities of 16th century Europe:
Spain and its bloody wars against the moors and secret love stories,
The blossom of the Italian humanism and Petrarca’s sensual verses,
The pompous French courts and their voluptuous love songs,
The glorious Elizabethan England and its cult of melancholy...
Carefully selected songs and stories for each of our concert programmes conveying a wide gamut of musical sensations, performed dynamically and passionately aiming to move and amaze our audiences.
