Renaissance Music: The Salisbury Four

The Salisbury Four ensemble members include Zahra Brown, soprano, Judith Dansker, recorder, Christopher Morrongiello, lute, and Marcia Young, soprano and Renaissance harp.

Seating is limited in the historic Studio.  Advance reservations highly recommended.

Zahra Brown is a soprano specializing in early music.  A longtime member of the professional octet at the Church of the Resurrection in New York City and Brown has performed as a soloist with Ex Umbris, the Vox Renaissance Consort, and the New York Baroque Dance Company. Brown has been featured in medieval and baroque operas in New York and on tour, at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Connecticut Early Music Festival, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, the Trinity Twelfth Night Festival, the Cloisters Museum, and Le Poisson Rouge. She is a cofounder of the Parnassus historical dance ensemble and has choreographed for Juneau Lyric Opera and the New York Continuo Collective.

Christopher Morrongiello is a graduate of the Royal College of Music and earned a PHD at Oxford. In 1996 the Marco Fodella Foundation awarded him a scholarship for studies at the Sculola Civica di Musica of Milan, and in 2006 The Lute Society of America invited Morrongiello to give the first Patrick O’Brien Lute Society of America Seminar Lectures. Morrongiello directs the Bachelor Consort, plays tenor lute in the Venere Lute Quartet and teaches music history at Hofstra University.

Marcia Young is a soprano and plays the renaissance harp.  Young was cited by the Washington Post for her elegant, dark hued soprano voice and winning mixture of formal restraint and emotional intensity. She is a member of My Lord Chamberlains Consort, Duo Marchand and the medieval trio Trefoil.  In recent seasons Young has appeared with the viol consort Parthenia, the renaissance band Piffaro, and the Folger and Newberry Consorts; at such venues as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters and the Yale Center for British Art.

Judith Dansker plays the oboe and recorder.  Dansker received the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School of Music where she studied with renowned oboist Robert Bloom. The New York Times commented that “her lovely solo lines were very skillfully handled.” Dansker has performed widely with many chamber music ensembles including The Galliard Woodwind Quintet, Trio Sonata, The New York Baroque Consort and is currently a member of The Hevreh Ensemble. The group has performed in Eastern Europe and recently returned from a tour to Poland. Dansker is on the faculty of Simon’s Rock of Bard College and is Professor of Oboe and Recorder at Hofstra University.