Pioneer Consort

We are releasing Noel, our Pioneer Consort holiday CD in November. The recording was pulled together from arrangements I made a few year back and made into a short run pressing for a  residency and tour in Florida in December of 2009. We were pleased with the result, and after some editing will release the CD to the public.

I took the material for the arrangements from many different cultures and countries, and have mixed the styles and instrumentation in the crazy-quilt Pioneer Consort style. What emerged was an album that surprised us with it’s depth and power.  

This is a quote from the liner notes by Chris Devine, who captured the essence of our work in his words: “When we began planning this CD, we knew we wanted to arrange and record in a way that would evoke a band of Renaissance minstrels, an Appalachian cabin, a Native american fireside, even a shipboard flagon of Yuletide mead on a storm-tossed sea far from home. We chose to play a combination of the very familiar and more obscure, sometime rustic, sometimes polished, but always authentic.”

- Michael Nix