By means of our tenacious endeavour studying, researching and performing the lute- song repertoire and the development of our singular approach to it, we strive to do justice to its great historical and artistic significance.
We specialised in the voice-lute repertory during our studies at the conservatories of The Hague and Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and started our career as a professional duo soon after our graduation. Since then we have carried out an intense international concert activity.
Awarded with an honorific mention at the “Alte Musik Treff” Berlin 2005, we have performed extensively in The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, England, France and Germany. We have given concerts at the Antonio de Cabezón Early Music Week (Burgos, Spain), A•devantgarde Contemporary Music Festival (Munich, Germany) with the Mediterranean Art Ensemble, Leicester Early Music Festival (England), Midis-Minimes (Belgium), "Soirée Privée" of the 2007 edition of the Utrecht Early Music Festival (The Netherlands) and Music for Galway Festival (Ireland) in collaboration with the cellist Adrian Mantu of the "ConTempo Quartet" (click hier for some videos of this performance)
Future projects include concerts at the Midis-Minimes Festival (Belgium) Noorderkerkconcerten and Stichting Kasteelconcerten (Netherlands). We have also initiated what promises to be a very fruitful collaboration with the spanish vihuelist Alfred Fernández in the new ensemble "El Canto del Caballero". We will be performing with him a new programme with music for two vihuelas and voice in Leuven (Belgium) in January 2009. We have recently recorded our first commercial CD for the Belgian label Musica Ficta, with songs by John Dowland and his contemporaries, that will be released in September 2009.
Gradually finding its way into the European courts of the renaissance, the lute was considered the most emblematic instrument of its age. Singularly endowed to accompany the voice, this combination inspired the raise of a vast corpus of ravishing songs. The great variety of languages, poets, composers, styles and folk influences defined the great richness of this repertoire.
By offering nowadays our eloquent and captivating interpretations of these songs, we seduce the listener with the diversities of 16th century Europe:
