Classical & Jazz Ensembles

The Department of Music offers a wide variety of traditional ("classical") performance ensembles. For audition and rehearsal information, contact the directors of each ensemble.

Brass Ensemble

Director: Peter Dubeau

Classical Guitar Ensemble

Director: Timothy Olbrych

Early Music Ensemble

The Early Music Ensemble plays medieval, renaissance, and baroque music on period instruments.  Our collection includes recorders, viols, lutes, vielle, gothic harp, rebec, rauschpfeife, krummhorn, cornetto, hurdy-gurdy, and access to several harpsichords and a 1740 organ house in the Wren Chapel pitched at a=417 and in fifth-comma meantone tuning.  Several students play their own old instruments, including baroque violin and baroque flute.  Click here for a news story on ensemble member Evan Callaway ('12) building a contrabass recorder for his Monroe project.  The ensemble gives two major concerts per year, in November and April, in the historic spaces in and near campus such as the 1693 Wren Chapel and the 1715 Bruton Parish Church in Colonial Williamsburg; the group also performs half a dozen other times per year for local and distant events.  The ensemble has performed throughout the mid-Atlantic and in 2008 released a CD of music of Bach and Handel on period instruments. About 15 students per year are chosen to join the group, including one singer per voice part.  Rehearsal times are chosen at the mutual convenience of the students and the director. For audition information, contact Director Ruth van Baak Griffioen.

Jazz Combo

Director: Harris Simon

Mixed Ensemble: Gallery Players

Director: Susan Via

Opera Workshop

Director: Ryan Fletcher

Percussion Ensemble

Director: John Lindberg

Saxophone Ensemble

Director: James Nesbit

String Ensemble

Director: Neal Cary

Woodwind Ensemble

Director: Patti Carlson