Organization

The vocal ensemble Blue Heron, directed by Scott Metcalfe, has been acclaimed by The Boston Globe as "one of the Boston music community's indispensables" and hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker for the "expressive intensity" of its interpretations; the Boston Musical Intelligencer calls Blue Heron "a fantastic model for the fully-realized potential of early music performance in the 21st century." Combining a commitment to vivid live performance with the study of original source materials and historical performance practices, Blue Heron ranges over a wide and fascinating repertoire. Blue Heron's first CD, featuring music by Guillaume Du Fay, was released in 2007; its second, of music from the Peterhouse partbooks by Hugh Aston, Robert Jones, and John Mason, followed in 2010. Both discs have received international critical acclaim and the Peterhouse CD made the Billboard charts. The second volume of Blue Heron's 5-CD series Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks, featuring music of Nicholas Ludford and Richard Pygott, was released in April 2012. The third in the series is due this Fall. Founded in 1999, Blue Heron presents subscription series in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in New York City. The ensemble has appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival, New York's 92nd Street Y, The Cloisters, and Music Before 1800, Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., the Pittsburgh Renaissance and Baroque Society, and Monadnock Music in New Hampshire, and with the wind band Piffaro and the viol consort Parthenia in Philadelphia. Blue Heron made its West Coast debut at Festival Mozaic in San Luis Obispo, California, and returned to California in 2012 for a debut at the Berkeley Early Music Festival.