Piffaro delights audiences with highly polished recreations of the rustic music of the peasantry and the elegant sounds of the official wind bands of the late Medieval and Renaissance periods. Its ever-expanding instrumentarium includes shawms, dulcians, sackbuts, recorders, krumhorns, bagpipes, lutes, guitars, and a variety of percussion — all careful reconstructions of instruments from the period.
UPCOMING CONCERTS & EVENTS
Piffaro is a 501(c)3 so your gifts are tax-deductible
Piffaro’s music catalog is available for purchase!
OUR MUSIC
Featured CD
Vespers
Composed by Kile Smith for Piffaro, Vespers incorporates seven musicians playing 27 instruments, accompanied by the new-music choir The Crossing.
Vespers is a magnificent achievement: it draws on the contrapuntal and textural idioms of Renaissance and Baroque music to create a fresh, vibrant musical statement in a contemporary harmonic language. The many instruments of the Piffaro Renaissance band are employed in myriad delightful combinations–from gentle, pastoral recorders with harp to a blazing chorus of shawms, dulcians, and sackbuts.. – Fanfare Magazine
Education
Education is an essential part of Piffaro’s mission. Discover ways that you or your students can learn more about the instruments and music of the Renaissance.
“There is a reason why the ensemble Piffaro from the USA has been invited back so many times to Regensburg. Few other instrumental ensembles of the early music scene, with their knowledge and wonderful programming, can excite audiences the way they do. Not only was the program itself fascinating, but also the enormous variety of instrumental color, with which Piffaro took the audience through the different musical styles and periods. This concert is the best example of how lively and exciting early music can be. The Reichssaal rocked!”
“From start to finish, the concert showed Piffaro to be playing not just at its historic best but to be considered among the finest period instruments ensembles in the world.”
“nothing felt obscure, severe, or even very distant”
“The chance, then, to hear the renowned visiting Piffaro, and their instruments — recorders, shawms, sackbuts, bagpipes, dulcians and so on — was potentially a once-in-a-lifetime experience… It was all magnificent.”
“Piffaro offered performances that enhanced its already high reputation for playing that is both technically polished and interpretively compelling. Timbres were tart, rhythms were precise and energetic, balance was superb, and the occasionally somber mood of some of the texts was always projected with warmth and lyricism.”
GOOGLE ARTS & CULTURE
Piffaro the Renaissance Band’s October 2016 performance of The Musical World of Don Quixote is proudly featured on the Google Cultural Institute, allowing it live on through capturing video highlights, performance photos, excerpts of text from the novel, and program notes.