The Nashville Early Music Ensemble is designed to perform the vocal and instrumental music of the Medieval and Renaissance periods as well as folk music from several world cultures. The twenty-seven member ensemble features musicians with diverse musical backgrounds but all with experience in early music. Instruments used by the ensemble include viols, lutes, guitars, ud, psaltery, harp, violin, recorders, sackbut, and a wide variety of percussion. The singers perform in original languages. The ensemble director is Dr. Gerald Moore, a retired music professor from Lipscomb University, who taught music theory and directed the university Early Music Consort for over twenty-five years.

The Nashville Early Music Ensemble is sponsored by the Department of Music at Lipscomb University.

CHRISTMAS CONCERTS

The Nashville Early Music Ensemble begins its second season with three performances of A Universal Christmas, which will feature Renaissance and Medieval music as well as traditional folk music from more than ten different world cultures.

On Tuesday, November 25, at 11:06 a.m., the ensemble will be featured on "Live from Studio C" on WPLN radio, 90.3 FM and 1430 AM. The performance will be rebroadcast at 8:06 p.m. that evening. The web address for the the station is http://wpln.org. For one week following the performance, the audio from this performance will be on the "Live from Studio C" webpage.

At 8:00 p.m. on the same day, November 25, the ensemble will present its full concert at Christ Church Cathedral, 900 Broadway, downtown Nashville. The web address for the cathedral is http://www.christcathedral.org/.



Click Here for Directions and a map provided by the Cathedral's website.

At 3:00 on Sunday afternoon, December 7, the NEME will present the same concert at the First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, TN, 801 South High Street. The web address for the church is http://1stprescolumbia.org/.



Click here for directions and parking information provided by the Church's website.

FUTURE EVENTS

The NEME is scheduled to perform at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 8, 2009. This concert will feature traditional Medieval and Renaissance music and will be a part part of the activities connected with the "Medieval Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art" hosted by the Frist Center. More details will be announced later.

Also upcoming in the Spring of 2009, is "The Old Song and Dance." This will be the Nashville Early Music Ensemble along with the Nashville International Folk Dancers. More information will be posted when it becomes available.

Update from Nov. 25, 2008

The Nashville Early Music Ensemble performed on "Live in Studio C" on WPLN 90.3 FM Public Radio in Nashville. The audio from this performance will be online for one week on the "Live in Studio C" website. Check it out here. The Ensemble was the second set of performers on today's show, and their performance starts halfway into the audio clip. The web audio clip has the full performance of "Ashir Shirim" which had to be truncated due to time constraints over the air. Photos from this performance will be posted soon.

The Ensemble also performed at Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Nashville. Photos, video and a copy of the program will be posted soon. This concert was highlighted on WSMV Channel 4's 10pm news broadcast.

Double Reeds and Early Music

The singers of the Nashville Early Music Ensemble assisted the Nashville Double Reed Ensemble in concert on Thursday, November 13, at 8:00 p.m. in Ward Hall on the campus of Lipscomb University in Nashville. Dewayne Pigg is the music director of the NDRE, an ensemble of oboes, English horns, bassoons, and contra bassoon.

The finale for the concert featured the double reeds and the singers from the NEME in a performance of a twelve-voice motet "Duo Seraphim" written by the Spanish composer Francisco Guerro (1528-1599).