The Love Birds

Robert Eisenstein has led over 200 productions and performances with Folger Consort over the past 40 years include Measure + Dido at the Kennedy Center 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. 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; former faculty member of Mount Holyoke College, where he taught music history and performed the viola de gamba, violin, and medieval fiddle. He is an active participant in the 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 founder of the Folger Consort. He is dean emeritus of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance after serving two terms as the school’s dean, where he was responsible for establishing the University of Michigan Gershwin Initiative, for re-instituting international touring, for the funding and design of a $30M expansion/renovation of the music building, and for launching the interdisciplinary enterprise ArtEngine and its national initiative a2ru (Alliance for the Arts at Research Universities). In Washington, in addition to his work with 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 during a period of rapid development and its move to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. 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.

Crossley Hawn (Soprano) has served as a soloist with ensembles including Folger Consort, Cathedra, the Washington Bach Consort, The Thirteen, the City Choir of Washington, Chatham Baroque, Choralis, the Reston Chorale, Maryland Choral Society, and University of Maryland Summer Chorus. Hawn was the winner of the 2018 Choralis Young Artists Competition. In addition to her solo work, Hawn is an active ensemble singer. She is a member of Eya Medieval Music and has also appeared chorally with the US Air Force Band’s Singing Sergeants, Kinnara, True Concord, EXO Choir, Chorosynthesis, Chantry, and The District Eight. She has performed worldwide in Italy, Canada, Switzerland, France, England, Germany, Austria, and Hungary. She is an Artistic Director of Bridge, a professional vocal chamber ensemble specializing in new works for voices. Hawn served as project manager and ensemble singer for Experiential Orchestra’s Grammy-winning premiere recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison.

Brian Kay (Lute) is a modern-day troubadour. He is the Artistic Director of the early music meets early theater group THEATRO, and is currently overseeing their international recording of music from the plays of William Shakespeare. He won a GRAMMY® Award for his work on Apollo’s Fire’s Songs of Orpheus recording with tenor Karim Sulayman. He works as a musician and recording artist for the Netflix music lab and is a featured soloist on the soundtrack of their original series The Witcher. He has performed throughout the world at venues such as the National Concert Hall of Dublin, Belfast Castle (Ireland), Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Folger Theater. His live radio appearances include NPR, Baltimore’s WYPR, Baltimore’s 98ROCK, Boston’s WGBH, and Cleveland’s WCLV. He has recorded with labels Avie and Sono Luminus and has appeared on releases which include original, early music, folk, traditional sephardic, chamber and orchestral. He is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, arranger, and a traditional and historical music specialist.

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. He is a founding member of the early music/folk crossover group Seven Times Salt, and in recent seasons he has performed with the Newberry Consort, Hesperus, the Henry Purcell Society of Boston, Early Music New York, Amherst Early Music, 21st Century Consort, In Stile Moderno, and the Cambridge Revels, making concert and theatrical appearances in New York City, Washington, DC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Memphis, Santa Fe, at the Yellow Barn Summer Festival in Vermont, and at the “La Luna e i Calanchi” festival in Basilicata (Italy).

Margot Rood (Vocalist), hailed for her “sterling, gleaming tone and magnificent control” by The Washington Post, performs a wide range of repertoire.

2024/2025 performances include her debut with Washington DC’s Folger Consort, as well as return appearances with Washington Bach Consort, Blue Heron, Handel & Haydn Society, True Concord Voices and Orchestra, and Capitol Early Music. Recent solo appearances include those with Toronto’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra (Messiah), Edinburgh’s Dunedin Consort (St. Matthew Passion), South Florida’s Enlightenment Festival (BWV 202 & 211), Washington Bach Consort (BWV 106 & 198), Cleveland Orchestra (Stravinsky Threni), Boston Symphony (Benjamin Dream of the Song), Rhode Island Philharmonic (Messiah), Philharmonia Baroque (BWV 61 & 140), New Jersey Symphony (Messiah), Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (Mozart Requiem), New World Symphony (Reich Desert Music), Handel + Haydn Society (The Fairy Queen, Mass in B Minor), TENET Vocal Artists (Messiah, Praetorius Vespers), Seraphic Fire (Messiah, Vivaldi Gloria), Bach Collegium San Diego (Messiah), A Far Cry (Golijov Three Songs), and numerous concerts with acclaimed ensemble Blue Heron.

Kristen Dubenion-Smith (Vocalist) Recognized for her “velvety legato and embracing warmth of sound” (Washington Classical Review) and “lyric-mezzo of uncommon beauty” (The Washington Post), mezzo-soprano Kristen Dubenion-Smith enjoys an active performing career in oratorio and sacred vocal chamber music, specializing in music of the medieval, renaissance, and baroque eras.

Recent solo engagements include concerts with the Washington Bach Consort, Apollo’s Fire, TENET, Opera Lafayette, Arts on Alexander, Ensemble Altera, The Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, and Bach Collegium of San Diego as well as an international tour of Handel’s Solomon with The Clarion Choir and The English Concert (Solomon understudy).

Mary Springfels (Instrumentalist) is a veteran of the American Early Music Movement. She is a native of Los Angeles, but moved to New York at the age of 21 to join the New York Pro Musica as their viola da gambist. From that time on, Mary has been an active participant in prominent early music ensembles, including the Waverly Concert, Concert Royal, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, The Folger Consort (Washington, DC), Ars Lyrica Houston, and the Texas Early Music Project (Austin). Mary directed the Newberry Consort in Chicago for 20 years, during which time the group made a number of critically-acclaimed recordings. She has also been a continuo player for the Chicago Opera Theater, Central City Opera, and the New York City Opera. Currently, she is a co-director of Severall Friends, an early music ensemble based in Santa Fe. Mary teaches all over the country.