Ensemble Sequentia

Founded in 1977 by Benjamin Bagby and the late Barbara Thornton, Sequentia is among world's most respected and innovative ensembles for medieval music. Under the direction of Benjamin Bagby, Sequentia can look back on almost thirty years of international concert tours, a comprehensive discography spanning the entire Middle Ages (including the complete works of Hildegard von Bingen), film and television productions of medieval music drama, and a new generation of young performers trained in professional courses given by members of the ensemble. Sequentia has performed throughout Western and Eastern Europe, the Americas, India, the Middle East, East Asia, Africa and Australia, and has received numerous prizes (including a Disque d'Or, several Diapasons d'Or, two Edison Prizes, the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis and a Grammy nomination) for many of its more than two dozen recordings on the Sony-BMG/Deutsche Harmonia Mundi and Marc Aurel Edition labels.  The two most recent releases, on the Sony-BMG label, feature widely disparate repertoires: the earliest-known European songs from the 10th and 11th centuries (Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper) and an exploration of the ?globalisation' of medieval plainchant (Chant Wars, recorded in collaboration with the Parisian medieval vocal ensemble Dialogos, dir. Katarina Livljanic). Chant Wars was released in November, 2005. Sequentia has created over sixty innovative concert programmes that encompass the entire spectrum of medieval music, in addition to their creation of music-theater projects such as Hildegard von Bingen's Ordo Virtutum, the Cividale Planctus Marie, the Bordesholmer Marienklage, Heinrich von Meissen's Frauenleich, and the medieval Icelandic Edda. The work of the ensemble is divided between a small touring ensemble of vocal and instrumental soloists, and an ensemble of men's voices for the performance of chant and polyphony. After 25 years based in Cologne, Germany, Sequentia's home has been re-established in Paris. (www.sequentia.org)