“Widely regarded as North America’s masters of music for Renaissance wind band” (St Paul Pioneer Press), Piffaro has delighted audiences throughout the United States, Europe, Canada and South America since its founding in 1980. Under the direction of Priscilla Herreid, Piffaro recreates the rustic music of the peasantry and the elegant sounds of the official wind bands of the late Medieval and Renaissance periods. Its ever-expanding instrumentarium includes over 40 shawms, dulcians, sackbuts, recorders, krumhorns, bagpipes, lutes, guitars, harps, and a variety of percussion — all careful reconstructions of instruments from the period.
Through Piffaro’s many recordings on Newport Classics, Deutsche Grammophon Arkiv Produktion, Dorian Recordings, PARMA/Navona, and its own house label, and through radio and internet broadcasts, its music has reached listeners worldwide, as far away as Siberia. Back Before Bach, Piffaro’s most recent recording for PARMA/Navona, was released in July 2017.
Piffaro’s National Recorder Competition for Young Players attracts talented competitors from around the country to Philadelphia every two years.
Piffaro and its artistic directors have been honored with Early Music America’s Howard Mayer Brown Award for Lifetime Achievement in Early Music in 2021, Early Music Brings History Alive award in 2003, the Laurette Goldberg Lifetime Achievement Award in Early Music Outreach in 2011, and the American Recorder Society’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 2015. In December 2016, it was one of 13 U.S. arts organizations invited to launch the new performing arts division of Google’s Cultural Institute, where it has mounted two exhibits.
For bookings or interviews, contact shannon at piffaro dot org.
“Widely regarded as North America’s masters of music for Renaissance wind band” (St Paul Pioneer Press), Piffaro delights audiences throughout the world with highly polished recreations of the rustic music of the peasantry and the elegant sounds of the official wind bands of the late Medieval and Renaissance periods. Its musicians perform on shawms, dulcians, sackbuts, recorders, krumhorns, bagpipes, lutes, guitars, harps, and a variety of percussion — all careful reconstructions of instruments from the period.