Piffaro, The Renaissance Band’s mission is to delight audiences with historically informed performances of music from the late Medieval, Renaissance and early Baroque periods, in the manner of the civic, court and chapel wind bands, which existed roughly between the years 1450-1650. We aim to entertain and educate others in the music itself, in its role in the culture of those periods, and in its link to music of our day. To that end we conduct extensive research and inquiry into the music, history, and performance practices of the Renaissance period. Our ever-expanding instrumentarium includes shawms, dulcians, sackbuts, recorders, krumhorns, bagpipes, lutes, guitars, harps, and a variety of percussion — all careful reconstructions of instruments from the period.
Founded in 1980 by Joan Kimball and Bob Wiemken and now under the artistic direction of Priscilla Herreid, the world renowned pied-pipers of Early Music present an annual subscription concert series in the Philadelphia region that also reaches an international audience online; tour throughout the United States, Europe, Canada and South America; and appear as performers and instructors at major Early Music festivals. Recordings are a significant part of the ensemble’s work, and 18 CDs have been released since 1992, including 4 on the prestigious label Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv Produktion.
Piffaro has been active in the field of education since its inception, and has been honored twice for its work by Early Music America, receiving the “Early Music Brings History Alive” award in 2003, and the Laurette Goldberg “Lifetime Achievement Award in Early Music Outreach” in 2011. In June 2015, the American Recorder Society honored Piffaro with its Distinguished Achievement Award. In 2022, founders Joan Kimball and Bob Wiemken received Early Music America’s Howard Mayer Brown Award for lifetime achievement in the field of early music.
Learn more at Piffaro’s exhibit at the Google Cultural Institute.