Bios:
SCOTT REISS, founder and Co-director of HESPERUS is one of the world’s leading recorder players. At home in medieval, Renaissance, and baroque styles, he also possesses a command of Irish and Appalachian music and the blues. In addition to the recorder, Mr. Reiss is known for his work on the hammered dulcimer, Irish pennywhistle, and Arabic hand drums. He was also a founding member and co-director of the Folger Consort for 21 years. His articles on recorder technique, improvisation, and traditional music have been published in Continuo, American Recorder, and Early Music America in this country, and Tibia in Germany. He also directs SoundCatcher, a series of workshops teaching musicians the skills of playing by ear. With his wife, Tina Chancey, he was the recent recipient of two-year grant from Earthwatch to do ethnographic research on Irish music. His most recent solo recording is “The Banshee’s Wail,” with Dr. Chancey, Zan McLeod and Glen Velez.

TINA CHANCEY, a founding member and Co-director of HESPERUS, is also a former member of the Folger Consort, the Ensemble for Early Music and the New York Renaissance Band. A multi-instrumentalist specializing in early bowed strings from the rebec and vielle to the kamenj, viol and lyra, she has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts to support solo performances on the pardessus de viole at the Kennedy Center and Weil Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. She has performed with the National Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonia, with Victoria de los Angeles at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with Sephardic musician Flory Jagoda, QUOG, an improvisational multi-media music theater group, and the early music ensembles, the New York Consort of Viols, Waverly Consort, Terra Nova Consort, Ex Umbris, and La Rondinella. Dr. Chancey received her PhD in Musicology from the Union Institute. Her articles on early music appear in scholarly and popular publications, and she has recorded for a score of labels from Arabesque to Windham Hill. She directs “What’s That Note, Inc.,” teaching sight singing and ear training to amateur singers, and also works as an independent recording producer.