Ciaramella

Ciaramella Ensemble brings to life Medieval and early Renaissance music from historical events and manuscripts. Praised for performing intricate fifteenth-century counterpoint “with the ease of jazz musicians improvising on a theme,” its members are united by the conviction that every composition conceals a rich story waiting to be unlocked through historical research and speculative performance.

Founded on a core of winds: shawm, sackbut, recorder, bagpipe, and voice, Ciaramella takes its name from the Italian shawm and from a fifteenth-century song about a beautiful girl whose clothes are full of holes. When she opens her mouth, she knocks men flat. Ciaramella’s members met as graduate students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. They first performed together on Christmas Day 2003, in Spoleto, Italy. There they collaborated with musicologist Gioia Filocamo to perform music from the manuscript Panciatichi 27, much of which had not been heard for centuries. In 2004, the group performed in a staged production of the first Hebrew play, A Comedy of Betrothal by Leone de’Sommi (c.1550) at the Cleveland Museum of Art.