Early Music Performers De Organographia

Oregon's Early Music Performers

Ensemble De Organographia and Oregon Renaissance Band CDs, including their latest, "Now make we joye: Renaissance Christmas and other Celebratory Music," are available at www.northpacificmusic.com.

Ensemble De Organographia
Ensemble De Organographia, Philip and Gayle Neuman, specializes in the music of four distinct periods; Ancient (see below), Medieval, Renaissance, and the 19th century, all performed on period instruments or faithful reproductions. Their concerts are entertaining and informative, combining text and song to bring to life the musical art of the distant past. They offer a comprehensive instrument lecture-demonstration to college music history and music appreciation classes.

The repertoire of Ensemble De Organographia is performed in an improvisatory style based on precepts preserved in period treatises. They perform ancient music of the Greeks, Egyptians and Sumerians on lyre, kithara, pandoura, salpinx, trichordon, aulos, psithyra, sistrum, syrinx monokalamos and tympanon. Their medieval repertoire is played on recorders, shawm, vielle, citole, bagpipe, hornpipe, douçaines, and slide trumpet. Their renaissance repertoire is performed on recorders, cittern, bandora, violin, sackbutts, carnival whistle, curtal, racketts, tartold, krummhorns, schreierpfeife, and pipe & tabor. Their 19th century performances are played on violin, viola, flageolets, cetra or english guitar, spanish guitar, banjo, czakan (walking stick recorder), ophicleide, serpent, and sausage bassoon.

De Organographia has presented numerous concerts, lectures and demonstrations in the US, Germany, Norway, Japan, Turkey, Greece, Israel, and Jordan since 1978. They have performed at the Getty Center, the Getty Villa, the Smithsonian Institution, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Florida State University, Oberlin Conservatory, Case Western Reserve University, the Bodrum Museum, the Amman Music Conservatory, and the Regensburg Old Town Hall. The Neumans are also instrument builders whose early woodwinds are played by Piffaro and other ensembles worldwide. They have been featured on numerous radio and television programs including NPR's Millennium of Music, Performance Today, OPB's Oregon Art Beat, and the all-Russian Kultura's Novosti Kulturi.

De Organographia has released eight CDs on the Pandourion label:
- "Music of the Ancient Greeks"
- "Music of the Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians and Greeks"
- "French Music of the 14th Century: Machaut and the Following Generation"
- "Carnevale! Music of 16th c. Italy"
- "Now make we joye: Renaissance Christmas and other Celebratory Music"
- "L'autre jour, Harp Music of the 18th & 19th centuries"
- "The One Horse Open Sleigh, 19th c. Christmas Music on Original Instruments"
- "Everything is Ragtime Now".

Ensemble De Organographia and Oregon Renaissance Band CDs are available at their concerts and at www.northpacificmusic.com.

Ancient Music by Ensemble De Organographia
Gayle and Philip Neuman perform the music of ancient Greece, Sumer, and Egypt on voice and a wide variety of replicas of period instruments. Recent archaeological discoveries have brought to light notated music from as early as the 20th century BCE (namely the musical instructions for the Hymn to Lipit-Ishtar c. 1950 BCE.) The instruments, made mostly by the members of the group, include double reed pipes, lyres, kithara, trichordon, harp, syrinx monokalamos, vertical flute, psithyra, sistrum, Greek and Egyptian trumpets, kymbala, and others. The ensemble has recorded two CDs of ancient music: Music of the Ancient Greeks which contains most of the extant Greek repertoire dating from c. 500 BCE to c. 300 CE including two choral fragments from Euripides' plays "Orestes" and "Iphigenaeia in Aulis," Mesomedes' "Hymn to the Sun," "Invocation of Calliope and Apollo," "Hymn to Nemesis," as well as the "Song of Seikilos," and the two monumental paeans found carved into the walls of the Athenian Treasury at Delphi and performed there in 127 BCE. Music of the Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians and Greeks includes the world's oldest notated music found at Nippur and Ugarit, preserved for nearly four millennia on baked clay tablets, and Egyptian music from an inscription found on a statuette in the Brooklyn Museum, written descriptions by Apuleius and Plutarch, and a number of compositions found at Oxyrhynchus in Greek notation. Excerpts from these recordings can also be heard in various museums worldwide and the Norton Recorded Anthology of Western Music. Excerpts from Music of the Ancient Greeks were used in a recent TED Talk by Michael Tilson Thomas on the history of musical notation.

The music of these ancient cultures is unlike anything heard in concert today - the microtonal tuning of Euripides' choruses is contrasted with the more familiar sounding diatonic scales of the earlier and later works (surprisingly, the world's earliest music, the repertoire written in Babylonian notation, uses seven diatonic modes analogous to our modern western system.) The instruments are copies made by the Neumans after museum originals including the long necked lute of Harmosi and 3-holed vertical flutes in the Cairo Museum, after iconographical evidence including the kithara patterned after an Attic vase painting, the trichordon patterned after a bas relief in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, and the aulos patterned after an original pair in the Louvre. The group also performs on a pair of original small bronze cymbals from the Roman era found at Alexandria.

Gayle Stuwe Neuman, a performer on violin, recorder, sackbutt, and many other instruments, is also a vocalist who has received international acclaim for her renditions of the "Song of Seikilos", the "Chorus from Orestes," and others upon the release of Ensemble De Organographia's "Music of the Ancient Greeks," now in its eighth pressing. Several of the tracks from that recording have also appeared in the Norton Scores CD Anthology and numerous films and television programs. She has performed for audiences in the U.S., Japan, Israel, Turkey, Greece, Canada, Norway, Germany, and for members of the royal family in Jordan. She cofounded and co-directs the Oregon Renaissance Band, now in its 21st season. Gayle is a member of the Trail Band and on occasion performs with Cappella Romana and the Portland Baroque Orchestra Chorus. She has played under the baton of Monica Huggett and Ton Koopman. She teaches Recorder and Renaissance Song Classes at Portland's Community Music Center, and Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Music History at Marylhurst University. She has given workshops and presentations at many institutions including Oberlin Conservatory, Rice University, Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Getty Museum. She has built with her husband Philip over 400 early wind and stringed instruments, including crumhorns, corna musen, racketts, and vielles.

Philip Neuman, a performer on recorder, sackbutt, and numerous other wind and string instruments, cofounded and co-directs the Oregon Renaissance Band, which has performed for the Regensburg Early Music Festival and recorded the cd "Carnevale." He has produced and recorded seven cds for Pandourion Records including "French Music of the 14th Century," "Music of the Ancient Greeks," and "The One Horse Open Sleigh." He has written and recorded for productions by Oregon Public Broadcasting. He has played for audiences on three continents, including performances at several ancient theatre sites in Greece. He has taught Recorder, Renaissance Winds, and Loud Band Classes at the Community Music Center in Portland since 1980. He teaches Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Music History at Marylhurst University. Philip is a member of the Trail Band, has performed under the baton of Christopher Hogwood and Nicolas McGeegan, recorded with the American Bach Soloists, and has played in the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, The Chicago Chorale, Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra, and Spiritus Collective. He has composed, arranged and transcribed over a thousand works for recorder ensemble, brass ensemble, and symphonic wind ensemble, including "Theme and Variations" that won 1st place in the San Francisco Recorder Composition Competition.

The Oregon Renaissance Band
The Oregon Renaissance Band is a 10 to 12 member ensemble dedicated to performing and recording music of the Renaissance, played on faithful reproductions of historical instruments. These include violins, cittern, harp, bandora, chitarrino, recorders, krummhorns, racketts, sackbutts, pipe & tabor, bagpipes, schreierpfeiffen, and percussion, many of which were built by the performers. The Oregon Renaissance Band has presented concerts and workshops since 1991 and has been featured on NPR's "Performance Today." Their CDs with Ensemble De Organographia include "Now make we joye: Renaissance Christmas and other Celebratory Music" and "Carnevale! Carnival Songs, Frottole, Dances and other Festive Music of 16th century Italy." In 1998, ORB performed at the early music festival in Regensburg, Germany.

Directed by Philip Neuman and Gayle Neuman. Other members include Daphne Clifton, Kathryn Richer, Andy Harris, Ben Fitch, Cindy Markham, Polly Gibson, David Bryan, Lori Fitch, Hideki Yamaya, and Sharon Cheney.

Hideki Yamaya
Specializing in the playing of lutes and historical guitars, Mr. Yamaya now resides in Portland. He performs on renaissance and baroque lutes, archlute, theorbo, baroque guitar, mandolino, and 19th century guitar. He has studied with Robert Strizich, John Schneiderman, James Tyler, Paul Beier, and others. A CD recording entitled "Lute Recital: Music of Dowland, Ballard, and Zamboni" is available from Mediolanum Music. A work by Giorgio Scotti is also included. For more information visit www.hyamaya.com.