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 Artists

More collaborators: 

Mara Winter, historical flutes

Priscilla Herreid, historical woodwinds and voice

Peter Walker, voice and bagpipes

Clara McNamara, voice

Camila Parias, voice

Jessica Petrus, voice

Brian Kay, plucked strings and voice

Scott Boni, jazz Saxophone

Sarah Moyer, voice

Elise Groves, voice

Julien Heller, violin

Elizabeth Weinfield, viola da gamba

Steve Cosnek, dancer

Chien-Hwe, dancer 

Giselle Ty, stage director

 

Biography

The Broken Consort is an exuberant and experimental chamber ensemble with a story to tell. We are an American based ensemble seeks to present original, adventurous, and passionate concert programs with an emphasis on rhetorical, socially relevant, and historically-informed narrative. Every concert is an aural and sensual experience. We specialize in contemporary and historical improvisations, and have a special affinity to long-lost voices and living composers.

 

Praised as “early music turned early magic,” TBC has “bewitched and beguiled” critics with our “extraordinary sonorousness” and “imagination". The Broken Consort has performed for enthusiastic audiences across the United States, Mexico, and Canada as presented by leading early music and  chamber music series since its inception in 2010.

 

Every TBC program features a different vision, attitude, and voice that is uniquely ours. Our collaborators include dancers, theater directors, writers, audio artists, composers, musicologists, and lighting designers.  TBC has collaborated with composer Emily Lau on her debut album "Isle of Lucidity" to great acclaim, and has just completed recording an album of her music, "Opus 1 & 2: Radical Softness and The Glorious Cuntata", with GRAMMY-nominated producer Keith Weber.

Over the past 7 years, TBC has developed an unique method of artistic exploration: for 7-10 days, artists converge, live, cook, rehearse, explore, party, laugh, and get to see one another as whole human beings under the banner of a project. The ability to truly focus and witness one another's strength and vulnerabilities as artists and humans yields magical results both externally and internally. We believe that our deep connection to one another is evident in our artistic presentation.

 

TBC is the resident professional ensemble of the Big Mouth Society in Portland, OR. 

What is A "broken consort"?


A broken consort is an English early Baroque terminology referring to ensembles with

instruments from more than one family. Though historically the term only came into use in the

late 17th c., and usually only refers to English music, musicians and writers have since then applied the term retrospectively to music of early periods and of different nationalities. 

 

We are, indeed, a broken consort made up of instrumentalists from different families and singers of all vocal ranges.​ The word "broken" conjures up the image of "breaking from" limitations and fear and "breaking into" new ideas and fresh approach.

 

 

Recent press and interviews:

 

Interview: Houston Chronicle, 2014

Preview: Boston Globe, 2014

Review: Cleveland Classical, 2013

Review: Boston Musical Intelligencer, 2012

 

 

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