Folger Consort Concludes Whose Democracy? Season with a Series of Concerts Fit for a King … or a Rebellion

“A triumph of historical recreation and artistic excellence” — Teniola Ayoola, MD Theatre Guide

Folger Consort, the award-winning early music ensemble-in-residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library, closes out its season with the series of concerts focused on the political music of 16th and 17th century England with Kings and Commonwealth. Performances take place May 2–May 4, 2025.

Selected as a top music recommendation in Washington City Paper’s 2025 Spring Arts Guide, Kings and Commonwealth provides country dances, courtly chamber music, and a wealth of popular broadside ballads on political topics, some sung to great tunes like “Greensleeves.” Kings James I and Charles I, Parliament and Oliver Cromwell, and Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot all figure prominently in the concert’s selections. A tumultuous time, when the monarchs and Parliament were involved in a struggle over the absolute power of the king leading to Civil War and a royal execution, the music and poetry from early modern England remain as charged and fervent as ever.

“We are excited about our final concerts in our 2024-2025 Whose Democracy? Season,” shares co-Artistic Director Robert Eisenstein. “We’ll have viol consorts, flashy recorder pieces, animated country dances featuring not one but two bagpipes, and a piece for the month of May by Christopher Simpson (‘Simpson’s great Work will teach the world to play!’).”

“We have invited a stellar group of singers and players to join us for some wonderful and often very topical music from the 17^th century—a time that saw the beginnings of Britain’s democratic constitutional monarchy,” states co-Artistic Director Christopher Kendall. “Baritone Peter Walker will be joined by our dear friend soprano Emily Noël in her only appearance with Folger Consort this season.”

Folger Consort’s lineup of guest artists also includes Risa Browder (violin, treble viol), Mark Cudek (cittern, bass viol), Amy Domingues (bass and tenor viols), Dan Meyers (winds, percussion), and Cameron Welke (lute, theorbo, guitar), as well as Eisenstein (bass viol, violin, recorder).

On Wednesday, April 30 at 6pm, Eisenstein leads a lively virtual Early Music Seminar that offers a sneak peek at the music performed in the Folger Consort’s Kings and Commonwealth concerts. The event will be hosted on Zoom; $10, with discounts for Folger Members and Subscribers.

Consort concertgoers are invited to visit the Folger’s current exhibition How to be a Power Player: Tudor Edition, which engages with many of the same themes as Kings and Commonwealth. The exhibition features more than 60 objects from the Folger’s collection to demonstrate the “rules” for how to be a successful courtier. They show how historical and literary figures ranging from royal advisors to household staff used cunning, cutthroat, and creative means to acquire power and curry favor with the Tudor monarchs. More information is available at:

Tickets can be purchased online at www.folger.edu/consort or by contacting the Folger box office at (202) 544-7077. Tickets are $20-$45, with discounts available for Folger members and subscribers, seniors, students, educators, military and their families, and groups. More information is available online.

Members of the press who would like to cover the performance may reserve tickets through Colleen Kennedy, Senior Communications Manager, by email at press@folger.edu.

Selected images are available here.

Photo credit: Peggy Ryan

Show art credit: Chloe Zola 2024, Levy Creative Management, NYC

About the Artists

Risa Browder (Violin, Treble Viol), whose playing The Washington Post has called “flavorful and expressive,” trained at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Royal College of Music (London, UK), and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basel, Switzerland)She performed and recorded extensively while in Europe with the English Consort, Academy of Ancient Music, English Baroque Soloists, Purcell Quartet, London Baroque, and Les Musiciens du Louvre, among others. With her group Modern Musick, she has led a wide range of programs, including early Italian sonatas, Corelli Concerti Grossi, Handel oratorios, and Classical chamber music. Risa appears regularly with the Folger Consort, the Washington Bach Consort, the Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, REBEL, and IN Series Opera. She teaches baroque violin and viola at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and, with her husband John Moran, co-directs the Baltimore Baroque Band, Peabody’s acclaimed baroque orchestra, garnering them Early Music America’s Thomas Binkley Award in 2018. Risa also directs the middle and high school orchestras at the H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program in Arlington, Virginia.

Mark Cudek (Cittern, Bass Viol) is the former Chair of the Historical Performance Department at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, Artistic Director of the Indianapolis Early Music Festival, and a founding member of the Baltimore Consort. In recognition of his work as Founder/Director of the Peabody Renaissance Ensemble and the High School Early Music Program at the Interlochen Arts Camp, Mark received from Early Music America the 2001 Thomas Binkley Award and the 2005 Award for Outstanding Contributions to Early Music Education. Mark is the 2014 recipient of The Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association’s Global Achievement Award and in 2018 was promoted to full Professor. Mark retired from Peabody in 2024. He has toured and recorded with Apollo’s Fire and Hesperus and performs regularly with the Folger Consort.  In his youth, Mark worked as a night club guitarist in the Virgin Islands. Most recently, Mark is touring with the trio Gut, Wind, and Wire.

Amy Domingues (Bass and Tenor Viols) is an ardent performer of the cello, viola da gamba, baryton, and vielle. She holds a master’s degree in Historical Performance from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and has performed in masterclasses for Wieland Kuijken, Paolo Pandolfo, and Philippe Pierlot. She appears with groups as varied as the Folger Consort, Musica Spira, Hesperus, the Washington Bach Consort, and the Valencia Baryton Project. Amy is a founding member of Sonnambula, ensemble in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2018-2019). She has served as faculty at the Madison Early Music Festival, Amherst Early Music, and the Viola da Gamba Society of America Conclave, as well as workshops abroad. Amy appears on over 70 albums in multiple genres, most recently Sonnambula’s world premiere of Leonora Duarte’s Sinfonias (Centaur Records). She has received grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the Viola da Gamba Society of America.

Robert Eisenstein (Bass Viol, Violin, Recorder)

Emily Noël (Soprano) performs a wide variety of repertory expanding from the medieval to the contemporary. Favorite Folger Consort performances include Music of Medieval Spain, Play of Love, Davenant’s Macbeth, Second Shepherds’ Play, Measure + Dido, The Merchant of Venice, Christmas in New Spain, and Map of the World. She has also appeared as a soloist with the Washington Bach Consort, Washington National Cathedral, LyricFest, Ente Concerti Città di Iglesias, Grachtenfestival Amsterdam, American Opera Theater, Mountainside Baroque, Early Interval, and Santa Fe Desert Chorale. She recently returned from Poland where she performed and recorded with the Wind Orchestra of the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków. Ms. Noël currently teaches at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.

Dan Meyers (Winds, Percussion) A versatile multi-instrumentalist, Dan Meyers is a flexible and engaging performer of both classical and folk music; his credits range from premieres of contemporary chamber music, to headlining a concert series in honor of Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival, to playing Renaissance instruments on Broadway for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre Company. He is a founding member of the early music/folk crossover group Seven Times Salt, and he has recently performed with Hesperus, the Newberry Consort, the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, Severall Friends, the Henry Purcell Society of Boston, Amherst Early Music, 21st Century Consort, Ensemble Origo, and In Stile Moderno, performing around the US and Europe. He plays traditional Irish music with the bands Ulster Landing and Ishna, and eclectic Mediterranean fusion with his ensemble Zafarán. He has taught historical wind instruments at the Five Colleges Early Music Program in MA, Tufts University, and festivals and workshops around the US. www.danmeyersmusic.com

Peter Walker (Baritone, Bagpipe) Described as a “commanding” singer by the Boston Globe, Peter Walker has performed with the Handel and Haydn Society, Chapter House, Grammy-nominated Skylark Ensemble, Kuhmo Kamarimusiikki, Staunton Music Festival, IN Series Opera, Alkemie, Trobar, Three Notch’d Road, Blue Heron, Pomerium, and Grammy-nominated Clarion Society Choir. Peter is a member of the United States Army Chorus, has presented lectures on early music at Vassar College and Case Western Reserve University, and serves as cantor at the National Shrine of St. Alphonsus Liguori. He won the Overseas Class in the Lowland and Border Pipers’ Society Competition in 2016, and is active as a researcher, transcriber, and arranger of music ranging from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century.  Peter holds degrees from Vassar College and McGill University, where he studied with Drew Minter and Sanford Sylvan.

Cameron Welke (Lute, Theorbo, Guitar) brings a passionate curiosity and a deep creative drive to all manner of historical plucked instruments, which he plays with “expert technical dexterity, consummate phrasing and endearing expressivity” (Chestnut Hill Local). Recent engagements include performances with the Folger Consort, the Washington Bach Consort, Tempesta di Mare, the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Three Notch’d Road, and Hesperus. In 2022, he gave the first lute masterclasses in the Dominican Republic through La Fundación de la Villa de Santo Domingo. He explores repertoire for two baroque lutes with Richard Stone in Duo Silvio and is a co-founder of the early music collective Magdalena. Cameron holds a BM in classical guitar performance from Belmont University, where he studied with Francis Perry and John Pell, and an MM in historical performance on lute and theorbo from the Peabody Institute, where he studied with Richard Stone.

Folger Consort’s Co-Artistic Directors

Robert Eisenstein has led over 200 productions and performances with Folger Consort over the past 40 years, including Measure + Dido at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Napa Valley Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice at Strathmore, The Fairy Queen and Hildegard Von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum at the Washington National Cathedral. Recently retired as the Director of the Five College Early Music Program; Music Director for the Five College Opera Project production of Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero; Mount Holyoke College faculty emeritus, where he taught music history and performed the viola de gamba, violin, and medieval fiddle. He is an active participant in Five College Medieval Studies. Recipient of Early Music America’s Thomas Binkley Award for outstanding achievement in performance and scholarship by the director of a college early music ensemble.

Christopher Kendall is the founder of the Folger Consort. He is Dean Emeritus of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance in Ann Arbor. In Washington, in addition to his work with the Folger Consort, since 1975 he has been Artistic Director and conductor of the 21st Century Consort, the new music ensemble-in-residence at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Mr. Kendall served as Director of the University of Maryland School of Music from 1996 to 2005. Associate Conductor of the Seattle Symphony from 1987 to 1992 and Director of the Music Division and Tanglewood Institute of the Boston University School for the Arts from 1993 to 1996, Mr. Kendall has guest conducted many orchestras and ensembles in repertoire from the 18th to the 21st centuries. His recordings can be heard on the Bard, Delos, Nonesuch, Centaur, ASV, Arabesque, Innova, Bridge, and Smithsonian Collection labels.

Tickets & Information

What: Folger Consort: Kings and Commonwealth

When: Friday, May 2–Sunday, May 4, 2025

Where: Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 East Capitol Street, SE, Washington, DC

Tickets: $20-$45, with discounts available; Purchase via phone at (202) 544-7077 or online at folger.edu/whats-on/kings-and-commonwealth/

About Folger Consort

For 47 seasons as the early music ensemble in residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Folger Consort has delighted audiences with a stunning repertoire of early music spanning roughly 800 years. With world-class guest artists, from virtuoso soloists to large choirs and orchestras, Folger Consort has performed masterpieces of the most renowned composers and hidden treasures from those who might otherwise be lost to history. Performing in the intimate setting of the Folger’s Elizabethan Theatre, as well as such grand spaces as Washington National Cathedral and the Kennedy Center, Folger Consort has also toured nationally and internationally to Shakespeare’s Globe and other prestigious venues.

Among other awards and critical acclaim for its performances and recordings, Folger Consort has received Best Classical Chamber Ensemble from the Washington Area Music Awards multiple times. For more on Folger Consort, please visit www.folger.edu/folger-consort.

Folger Consort recordings are available for purchase and digital download at iTunes and available for streaming on Spotify.

About Folger Shakespeare Library

The Folger Shakespeare Library makes Shakespeare’s stories and the world in which he lived accessible. Anchored by the world’s largest Shakespeare collection, the Folger is a cultural organization where curiosity and creativity are embraced, and conversation is always encouraged. Visitors to the Folger can choose how they want to experience the arts and humanities, from interactive exhibitions to captivating performances, and from path-breaking research to transformative educational programming. The Folger welcomes everyone to connect in their own way—from communities throughout Washington, DC, to communities across the globe. Following a multi-year renovation, the Folger’s historic Capitol Hill home reopened to the public on June 21, 2024. Learn more at www.folger.edu.

Folger Consort 2024-25 Sponsors

Premier Season Sponsors
Dr. Bill and Evelyn Braithwaite
Andrea “Andi” Kasarsky

Production Sponsors
Gail Orgelfinger and Charles Hanna

Contributing Sponsors
Mr. Leslie C. Taylor

Associate Sponsors
David and Lenka Lundsten
Robert J. and Tina M. Tallaksen
Mike Newton and Dr. Linda Werling
Mary Augusta and George D. Thomas

Artist Sponsors

Karl K. and Carrol Benner Kinde