Gail Gillispie    Mon, 10 Jan 00 10:09:48 -0600
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I came to the lute via classical guitar and Irish music while at Oberlin
College, where I got 2/3 of the way through a Geology major before
succumbing.  (Hearing Josquin's "Ave Maria" in music history class was
the last straw.)  For one year while I was there, Paul O'Dette and Lyle
Nordtrom were coming in alternately every three weeks to teach the lute
students, among whom was Peter Croton, so I learned thumb-under technique
almost immediately.  I also studied medieval & Renaissance notation &
theory, and counterpoint, and learned how to program concerts from the
legendary L. D. Nuernberger.  (Derek Lee Ragin was the mainstay of the
Collegium choir at the time!)

After college I attended the Early Music Centre in London (Antonio Corona
was one of the other students), where I studied with Chris Wilson,
discovered what beer is supposed to taste like, taught some classes at
the EMC after "graduating," and was in a lute-song duo with Andrew
Lawrence-King, then working as a countertenor, who started playing harp
in some of our gigs together.  I took a break from London to go to New
York and study intensively with Pat O'Brien for a few months, from which
experience I got what technique I have.

I now live in the south suburbs of Chicago and am married to a printer
who plays Renaissance winds, mostly flute.  I play the occasional gig,
mostly Renaissance pop music, sometimes with my husband; teach a varying
number of students; do music engraving with Finale; sing in a
professional church choir which tours and records, and direct a vocal
ensemble which sings mostly but not exclusively 15th and 16th century
Franco-Flemish music.  We have one CD out, "Treasures Old and New: Nine
Centuries of Cistercian Music" which was published by Cistercian Press in
honor of the 900th anniversary of the founding of the monastery of
Citeaux.  (No lute playing on it, but some nice chant & polyphony.)  I
have also just become the U.S. agent for Jacob Heringman.

On the side, I spend way too much time online, try to garden, play tenor
viol and sometimes clawhammer banjo, and am learning to weave.




Gail Gillispie 
Artistic Director,
The Scholars of Cambrai