About
The Collegium Musicum is a workshop and performing ensemble dedicated to exploring the music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque periods. Members of the Collegium include performers on various wind, string and percussion instruments, as well as singers who sometimes perform acappella and sometimes together with an instrument or small instrumental ensemble. Because the repertory includes such a wide variety
of musical genres—and since in most cases instrumentation is not specified in the musical sources—flexibility,
creativity and improvisation characterize the process of arranging the music for performance. Although it is often not possible to recover the details of historical performance for any particular piece, the Collegium seeks to reflect period styles and instrumental or vocal techniques typical of the time and culture in which the music was composed. In addition to reconstructions of old instruments, such as recorders and violas da gamba, modern descendents of old instruments (violin, cello, guitar) are used as needed for a reasonably faithful performing arrangement of the music. In most cases the music is taken from published scholarly editions that reproduce the original sources as much as possible, and in some cases new transcriptions of music are made from surviving manuscripts and printed books. Our interest is not, however, in historical authenticity for its own sake, but to present music of extraordinary color and beauty that is capable of moving and delighting us even at the distance of several centuries.
Listening Samples
Collegium Musicum - Calvin College Fall Music Festival 2008 from Calvin College on Vimeo.
