The Attaignant Consort was co-founded in 1998 by Kate Clark (Australia), Frederique Chauvet (France), Marion Moonen (The Netherlands) and Marcello Gatti (Italy). Four fellow graduates of the Royal Conservatorium of The Hague, they had all come to the netherlands to specialise in the performance of historical flutes under either Wibert Hazelzet or Bart Kuijken. Each of the members is active in chamber ensembles and orchestras of international standing such as Les Musiciens du Louvre, Das Freiburger Barockorchester, Die Rheinische Kantorei, Musica Antiqua Köln, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Musica ad Rhenum, Concerto Köln and Cantus Cölln. Drawn together by a fascination with the renaissance flute, they have collaborated over many years with the Italian flute-maker Giovanni Tardino, exploring the sound world of this, until now, little-known instrument.

The musicians aspire to the highest ideal of sixteenth-century consort playing, namely to imitate human speech and song by means of such refined articulation, expressivity of sound and subtlety of dynamic nuance, that “only the form of the human body is missing” (S. Ganassi, 1535).

The Attaignant Consort works from facsimile editions of original part-books rather than scores, and performs as often as possible from memory, mindful of the aural tradition of learning in which many sixteenth-century instrumentalists were educated. The consort perofrms alone, or with lute or harp and sometimes with a singer. It has been acclaimed for concerts in Italy, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The ensemble’s first CD “Madame d’amours: Music for Renaissance Flute Consort” with lutenist Nigel North, will be released on the Ramee lable in October 2007