The Playfords
German Early Music Ensemble
The Playfords developed a distinctive authentic, innovative and danceable Early Music Style over the last 20 years of their existence. They are one of the few ensembles improvising extempore on stage and thus embody truthfully authenticity of historically informed performance. Their sources of creativity are music, texts and life of the 16th and 17th century in Europe and beyond. History, tradition & evergreens are woven into holistic concept programmes and blossom in new arrangements.
Early music, Folk, Pop, Jazz, non-European Music, Poetry, Dance, Art, Visual Arts and Theater are metamorphosed into I n s p i r e d E a r l y M u s i c .
The five-headed ensemble is named after John and Henry Playford’s collection “The English Dancing Master” (1651). A Real Book of it’s time providing notated Hit-melodies on fitting dance steps. Harmonies and Bass were to be improvised by the performing musicians, their essential character determined by those own predilections and particular talents. This was a welcome challenge to any virtuosic musician’s creativity – then as well as now.
The Playfords have performed regularly at international festivals since 2005, including as part of the “Oude Muziek Utrecht” Fringe festival, at the Gewandhaus Leipzig, Schloss Tirol, MDR-Musiksommer, Bach-Biennale Weimar, Stockstädter Blockflötenfesttage, Philharmonie Berlin, Konzerthaus Berlin, to Belarus in cooperation with Goethe Institut and at the EXPO 2015 in Milan and many more. So far six CDs have been released at Coviello Classics, Raumklang and DHM.
With their yearly Playgroundfestival of early music folk in Weimar the format of “Early Music Jam Sessions” and different crossover programmes with Latin, Iraqi, English, Italian, German, Austrian and Dutch Musicians have been created (Latin Baroque, Shakespeare’s Musicke & Dounce, Trialogue of Religions, L’Arte da Vinci).