Food, Wine & Song - Music and Feasting in Renaissance Europe

"A disc for musical foodies combining recipes - in a magnificently produced booklet - with one of The Orlando Consort's most outstanding programmes"
- Editor's Choice. Gramophone Magazine January 2002

For its harmonia mundi début, THE ORLANDO CONSORT serves up a delectable feast of songs on the subject of food. The included booklet features English, Italian, French, Burgundian, German and Spanish recipes of the period.

Formed by the Early Music Centre of Great Britain for a 1988 national tour, the ORLANDO CONSORT rapidly became one of the most reputed and innovative exponents of vocal repertoire of the eleventh to fourteenth centuries. All four members of the Consort are established soloists prized for their experience with such groups as the Tallis Scholars, the Gabrieli Consort, and the Taverner Consort. In collaboration with leading experts in Medieval and Renaissance music, the ORLANDO CONSORT has premiered fascinating repertoire unheard in modern times and has set new standards of performance, particularly in matters of pronunciation and tuning. Research into the extraordinary techniques of twelfth-century Aquitanian polyphony earned the Consort the 1996 Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society.

The group has garnered numerous distinctions, including the 1996 Gramophone Award for Early Music and an Edison Award nomination, and has been short-listed 5 times for further Gramophone Awards. The Consort now records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi USA.

The ORLANDO CONSORT - a frequent guest at International festivals in Europe and North America - tours extensively in the United States and Japan, and has appeared in Greece, Russia, and South America, with future visits planned to Holland, Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic. In April 2000, the Consort performed the inaugural concert at the National Centre for Early Music in York.

The work of the ORLANDO CONSORT extends beyond early music and has attracted considerable attention in recent years for imaginative programming of contemporary music. Forthcoming projects include collaborations with the jazz quartet Perfect Houseplants and with The Dufay Collective.