Mark Rimple on Furious Artisans

A disc that promises to merge the early music and new music contingents, featuring the renowned countertenor Drew Minter. The composer is also a countertenor and plays lute.

From the Rimple website:
http://markrimple.wix.com/home#!biography/c1enr

Biography

Mark Rimple has garnered critical notice for his interpretation of early music from national newspapers and journals including the Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Early Music America, and Early Music (UK).

He is a founding member of TREFOIL and musical director of Musica Humana Vocal Consort. He is a regular guest artist with the Newberry Consort and The Folger Consort, and has appeared with Piffaro, the Renaissance Band, The King’s Noyse, Ex Umbris (at the Clinton White House), New York’s Ensemble for Early Music, Mélomanie, Pomerium, Tempesta di Mare, Network for New Music, Cygnus Ensemble and the GEMS production of The Play of Daniel.

As an instrumentalist, Mark principally plays Medieval and Renaissance lute, archlute, gittern, citole, psaltery, and tenor viol. Before his early music career, he was an accomplished classical guitarist, specializing in new music. He is expert in the notation of the ars subtilior period and usually performs this music from original notation; he also specializes in the unaccompanied performance of the Italian 14th c. Istanpita. Mark has recorded early and new music as countertenor and lutenist with the Newberry Consort, Trefoil, Cygnus Ensemble and Network for New Music.

Mark’s compositions incorporate early instruments and techniques. His works have been performed by Parnassus, Network for New Music, Mélomanie, ChoralArts Philadelphia and The League of Composers/ISCM Chamber Players. A new Sextet “At Sixes and Sevens” will be premiered in the near future by The Cygnus Ensmeble. Mark’s solo composition CD, January: Songs and Chamber Music of Mark Rimple including works for archlute, countertenor, viola da gamba and harpsichord, is scheduled for release by Furious Artisans in April 2016.

Mark’s writings on the history of music theory have focused largely on the influence of Boethius on 14th – 17th century composers. He is a Professor of Music Theory and Composition at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Reviews:

“Mark Rimple’s lute solos had the interpretive specificity of a great vocal performance.”

​-The Philadelphia Inquirer

“His technique as a lutenist is fluid and confident, adding a kinetic lift to the ensemble. His considerable assets as a countertenor include a centered, clear tone, effortless upper notes capable of pinpoint agility…”

​-The Chicago Tribune

“…Rimple proved a deft lutenist”

-The New York Times

“It was that new work that most impressed Friday evening. “Le nouveau chant des oiseaux” (The new song of birds) by Mark Rimple is nothing short of a masterpiece of vocal solo and choral settings of evocative poems about birds in their flights and in their songs. Rimple … employed a remarkably delicate harmonic language of subtly changing voicings and continually shifting textures to provide an organic, flowing river of sound that enveloped the listener in a cloud of sonority.

-The Chestnut Hill Local