Recorder Fest!
March 7 at Temple University’s Rock Hall, Philadelphia
Ferrara: Splendor of the Renaissance
- March 13 – Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Sq., Philadelphia
- March 14 – Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia
- March 15 – Christ Church Christiana Hundred, Wilmington
- Streaming online Mar 27–April 9
March is Early Music Month and Piffaro, the Renaissance Band invites the community to celebrate with performances and hands-on musical experiences. Audiences can bring an instrument to a community play-in or embark on a musical journey to Ferrara. Select concerts will be professionally filmed for online streaming, ensuring access for audiences worldwide. For tickets, program details, and streaming information, visit www.piffaro.org/tix.
Piffaro’s free celebration of the community-building superpower of the humble recorder returns on March 7th with a full day of events. Recorder Fest includes an open rehearsal, a community play-in for enthusiasts of all abilities, and performances by student, adult amateur, and professional recorder players. The evening concludes with a reception hosted by the Philadelphia Recorder Society. More information is available at piffaro.org/recorder-fest or by calling 215-235-8469.
“All of us who attended Recorder Fest came away with deep admiration for the welcoming environment that Piffaro provided,” writes Geoffrey Burgess in American Recorder Magazine (Summer 2025 issue). “We were also impressed with the diversity of offerings, and the stellar work of the teachers who prepared their students.”
The festival begins at 3:00 p.m. with an open rehearsal featuring all performers. The celebration continues at 6:00 p.m. with a Community Play-In welcoming recorder players of all ages and abilities. Music will be sent to anyone who registers by March 3, but copies will be available at the door for anyone who shows up with an instrument in hand.
Public performances begin at 7:00 p.m., opening with students from Piffaro’s new flauta dulce class at Esperanza, followed by high school students and adult amateur musicians. Soloists will be accompanied by Piffaro band member Grant Herreid on lute. Barbara Stark will perform, demonstrating how adaptive recorders expand music-making opportunities for one-handed players. The evening will include a performance by Piffaro’s artistic director, Priscilla Herreid.
Recorder Fest reflects Piffaro’s ongoing commitment to accessibility, education, and the joy of making music together. Performers and audience members alike are invited to stay after the concert for a festive reception hosted by the Philadelphia Recorder Society—one of the nation’s largest chapters of the American Recorder Society.
Admission is free. All are welcome.
March’s program, Ferrara: Splendor of the Renaissance, is inspired by a city steeped in history and beauty. When UNESCO designated Ferrara a World Heritage Site, it dubbed it “The City of the Renaissance,” describing it as a place where the humanist concept of the ‘ideal city’ came to life.
Icons of art, fashion, letters and ideas were drawn to the salons of the ruling d’Este family, whose members nurtured music with particular devotion. For generations, Ferrara sustained a vibrant musical culture that flourished not only in church, but also in courts, salons and civic spaces, enlivening social life and projecting cultural power. When the last d’Este duke died without an heir in 1600, the house went to the Papal State, marking the end of the Renaissance, musically speaking.
Piffaro presents a panoramic concert tracing Ferrara’s extraordinary musical culture from the 15th century through the end of the d’Este dynasty—a period in which Ferrara helped shape the sound of secular music across Europe. Central to this story is the wind band, whose presence remained constant even as musical styles evolved.
The music is splendorous, reflecting the prestige of its patrons. At the heart of the program is the Casanatense Chansonnier, a manuscript almost certainly intended a la pifarescha – for wind band performance. Selections from this source include music by composers associated with the d’Este court, like Josquin des Prez and Johannes Martini, which will be interwoven with dance pieces by dancing masters Domenico da Piacenza and Guglielmo Ebreo. Works by Joan Ambrosio Dalza, including the Pavana alla Ferrarese and Piva alla Ferrarese, also highlight the importance of dance in Renaissance life.
The program does not neglect the great composers Cipriano de Rore and Carlo Gesualdo, who wrote music weighted with an emotional realism that opened the door to a new era. It also offers a rare glimpse into the musical creativity of women in the Italian Renaissance with groundbreaking works by Luzzasco Luzzaschi, who wrote for the professional female singers of the concerto delle donne, and Leonora d’Este, daughter of Lucrezia Borgia and Alfonso I.
A key theme of the concert is the unwritten tradition of Renaissance music-making. Performers learned by listening, adapting, and improvising. Piffaro will bring this practice to life, drawing on knowledge about performance practice gleaned from other sources to recreate dance music preserved in only a single line.
Ferrara: Splendor of the Renaissance is a historical journey, exploring how music, power, and creativity intertwined in one of the Renaissance’s most culturally influential courts.
LOOKING AHEAD
Eagle & Empire: Music of Colonial Mexico
- May 8 – Teatro Esperanza, Philadelphia
- May 9 – Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia
- May 10 – Westminster Presbyterian Church, Wilmington
- May 12 – St Luke in the Fields Church, New York City
- Streaming online May 22–June 4
The season concludes in May with Eagle & Empire: Music of Colonial Mexico, exploring the cultural friction and fusion of European and indigenous musical traditions in colonial-era Mexico.
Piffaro will be joined by an esteemed roster of vocalists: sopranos Nell Snaidas and Estelí Gomez, mezzo-soprano Cecilia Duarte, tenor Jonatan Alvarado, and bass-baritone Andrew Padgett. For this ambitious project, funded by a grant from the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Piffaro partners with Esperanza Arts Center and Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac (OYC), Philadelphia’s first Aztec dance troupe and a leading advocate for preserving Mexicayotl traditions. The Friday performance at Teatro Esperanza will feature Aztec dance and traditional foods prepared by OYC.
