Crawford Young
Encyclopedia
Crawford Young is an American lutenist, music teacher, and director of the Ferrara Ensemble and Shield of Harmony, both early music
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...

 groups.

Robert Crawford Young graduated in 1976 from New England Conservatory in Boston, where he played classical guitar, lute and tenor banjo. At Stanford University, he came in 1977 into contact with Thomas Binkley
Thomas Binkley
Thomas Binkley was an American lutenist and early music scholar.Thomas Eden Binkley studied at the University of Illinois and the University of Munich . He taught at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel...

 (1932–1995) from 1978-1981 was active with Sequentia
Sequentia (music group)
Sequentia is an early music ensemble, founded in 1977 by Benjamin Bagby and the late Barbara Thornton . The group specializes mainly in Medieval music. Sequentia focuses particularly on music with texts, specifically chants and other stories with music, such as the Icelandic Edda...

 of Benjamin Bagby
Benjamin Bagby
Benjamin Bagby is a singer, composer, harpist, and groundbreaking performer of medieval music. Educated at Oberlin College and the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Bagby founded the ensemble Sequentia with Barbara Thornton in 1977...

 and Barbara Thornton
Barbara Thornton
Barbara Thornton was a singer, musicologist and groundbreaking performer of medieval music....

 in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 as performer on the lute and gittern
Gittern
The gittern was a relatively small, quill-plucked, gut strung instrument that originated around the 13th century and came to Europe via Moorish Spain. It was also called the quinterne in Germany, the guitarra in Spain, and the chitarra in Italy...

. Since 1982 Young has taught medieval lute and medieval music performance practice at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis
Schola Cantorum Basiliensis
Schola Cantorum Basiliensis is a music academy and research institution located in Basel, Switzerland, and focusing on early music and historically informed performance....

, where he also performs.

In 1982 Young was a founding member of Ensemble P.A.N. (Project Ars Nova), along with Laurie Monahan (mezzo-soprano), Michael Collver (countertenor and corno muto) and first performed in Paris in 1982. For their American debut in Boston in 1984, Shira Kammen
Shira Kammen
Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Shira Kammen received her degree in music from the University of California, Berkeley and studied vielle with Margriet Tindemans. She has performed and taught throughout the world and has played on several television and movie soundtracks, including "O", a modern...

 (bowed strings) and John Fleagle (tenor and medieval harp) joined the group. The group ceased to perform in 1999, following the death from cancer of John Fleagle.

The Basel-based Ferrara Ensemble was founded almost simultaneously with Ensemble P.A.N., in 1983. Since the ensemble includes students at the Schola Cantorum, membership is fluid. Members have included: Randall Cook (viola d’arco, vielle
Vielle
The vielle is a European bowed stringed instrument used in the Medieval period, similar to a modern violin but with a somewhat longer and deeper body, five gut strings, and a leaf-shaped pegbox with frontal tuning pegs. The instrument was also known as a fidel or a viuola, although the French...

), Lena Susanne Norin (contralto), Kathleen Dineen (soprano), Debra Gomez (harp), Stephen Grant (baritone), Norihisa Sugawara (lute), Marion Fourquier (harp), Miriam Andersen (mezzo-soprano, harp), Masako Art (harp), Raitis Grigalis (baritone), Els Janssens (mezzo-soprano), Eve Kopli (soprano), Jessica Marshall (viola d’arco), Eric Mentzel (tenor), Karl-Heinz Schickhaus (dulce melos).

Young is considered by many to be the premier interpreter of early repertory for medieval and early Renaissance lute. As lutenist and guitarist Young has accompanied Andreas Scholl
Andreas Scholl
Andreas Scholl is a German countertenor, a male classical singer in the alto vocal range. He is noted as a specialist in Baroque music.-Childhood:...

 since 2004. The quartet Shield of Harmony comprises: Kathleen Dineen (soprano), Margit Übellacker (dulcimer), Marc Lewon (vielle), Crawford Young (lute).

Publications

  • Chapter 25 On the trail of ensemble music in the fifteenth century in Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Music.

Recordings

With Ensemble P.A.N. (Project Ars Nova):
  • Ars Magis Subtiliter. Secular Music of the Chantilly Codex. New Albion Records, 1989.
  • The Island of St. Hylarion - Music of Cyprus 1413-1422. New Albion Records, 1991.
  • Machaut: Remède de Fortune. New Albion Records, 1994.
  • Unseen Rain - New music for old instruments. New Albion Records, 1994.


With Ferrara Ensemble:
  • Alexander Agricola
    Alexander Agricola
    Alexander Agricola was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. A prominent member of the Grande chapelle, the Habsburg musical establishment, he was a renowned composer in the years around 1500, and his music was widely distributed throughout Europe...

    : Secular music. Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, 1990, 2010
  • Forse che si, forse che no - Musique de danse du Quattrocento. Fonti Musicali 182.
  • Hildebrandston - Chansonniers Allemands du XVe siècle. Producer Michel Bernstein
    Michel Bernstein
    Michel Bernstein was a French musical producer and founder of several record labels.Bernstein's first contact with classical music was hearing the school music teacher play Beethoven on an out-of-tune piano at the age of 15, but thereafter he took a lively interest in music and recordings.-...

     Arcana A35.
  • Balades a III chans de Johan Robert "Trebor" & al. Arcana A32 1994
  • Fleurs de vertus - Chansons subtiles à la fin du XIVè siècle. Arcana A40
  • The Whyte Rose - Poétique anglo-bourguignone au temps de Charles le Téméraire. Arcana A301.
  • En doulz chastel de Pavie - Chansons à la cour des Visconti, 1400. (Songs for the court of Visconti, 1400) Schola Cantorum Basiliensis
    Schola Cantorum Basiliensis
    Schola Cantorum Basiliensis is a music academy and research institution located in Basel, Switzerland, and focusing on early music and historically informed performance....

     "Documenta", Harmonia Mundi 905241
  • Machaut: Mercy ou Mort - Chansons & motets d'amour. Arcana A305
  • Walter Frye
    Walter Frye
    Walter Frye was an English composer of the early Renaissance.-Life:Nothing certain is known about his life. He may have been a "Walter Cantor" at Ely Cathedral between 1443 and 1466, and he may have been the Walter Frye who joined the London Parish Clerks in 1456; he also may have been the Walter...

    : Northerne Wynde. Marc Aurel Edition 20018
  • Corps Femenin - L’avant-Garde De Jean Duc De Berry
    John, Duke of Berry
    John of Valois or John the Magnificent was Duke of Berry and Auvergne and Count of Poitiers and Montpensier. He was the third son of King John II of France and Bonne of Luxemburg; his brothers were King Charles V of France, Duke Louis I of Anjou and Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy...

    .
    Senleches, Trebor
    Trebor (composer)
    Trebor was a 14th-century composer of polyphonic chansons, active in Navarre and other southwest European courts circa 1380-1400. He may be the same person also called Triboll, Trebol, and Borlet in other contemporaneous sources...

    , Solage
    Solage
    Solage was a French composer. He composed the most pieces in the Chantilly Codex, the principal source of music of the ars subtilior, the manneristic compositional school centered around Avignon at the end of the century.-Life:Nothing is known about his life, beyond what can be inferred from the...

    . Arcana, recorded 2000 & 2008, issued 2010.


With Shield of Harmony:
  • Oswald von Wolkenstein
    Oswald von Wolkenstein
    Oswald von Wolkenstein was a poet, composer and diplomat. In the latter capacity, he traveled through much of Europe, even as far as Georgia , and was inducted into the Order of the Dragon...

    : Songs of myself Andreas Scholl
    Andreas Scholl
    Andreas Scholl is a German countertenor, a male classical singer in the alto vocal range. He is noted as a specialist in Baroque music.-Childhood:...

    . Harmonia Mundi, 2010
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