Bios
Mauricio Molina is a historical musicologist and early music performer dedicated to the reconstruction of 12th– and 13th-century music. He holds a Historical Performance degree from The Mannes College of Music (New York) and a musicology Ph. D. degree from the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is a professor of medieval music at the Conservatory of Girona (Catalonia, Spain), lecturer in historical performance program at the the ESMUC (Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya), and director of the International Course on Medieval Music Performance at Besalú (Catalonia). He is the author of Frame Drums in the Medieval Iberian Peninsula (Reichenberger 2010), a book that received the Nicholas Besseraboff Prize of the American Musical Instrument Society as the most distinguished book-length work on organology of 2010. Mauricio is also the director of the medieval music ensemble Sendebar.
José Pizarro is considered at the present one of the most important early music tenors in Europe. He studied with Aldo Baldin, Mark Tucker, Iain Burnside and the German mezzosoprano Ingeborg Danz. Because of his interest in choral conducting, José also studied with Manuel Cabero, Martin Schmidt y Eric Ericson. He is a member of the early music groups Collegium Vocale Gent (Belgium), and Los Músicos de Su Alteza. He also performs regularly with groups such as Akadêmia, Arsys, Armoniosi Concerti, Cappella Amsterdam, El Concierto Español, La Chapelle Royale, Capella de Ministrers, La Capilla Real de Madrid, Conductus Ensemble, La Colombina, Capilla Peñaflorida, l’Ensemble Jacques Moderne, Música Ficta and The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. As a soloist he has participated in the premiere in Barcelona of the cantata Der Lindberghflug of Kurt Weill and he has been praised for his performances in the role of the Evangelist in the Passions of J.S. Bach.
Irantzu Zuasti studied modern violin with Isabel Vilà and Ovidiu Stanculescu. Her interest in ancient music prompted her to study baroque and classical violin first with Alba Roca, and after with Manfredo Kraemer, Pablo Valetti, Chiara Bianchini and Lorenzo Coppola at the Master in historical performance at l’ESMUC (Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya). She has been a member of the Joven Orquesta Nacional de España (Jonde), the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra, and the Orquesta Sinfónica del Teatro del Liceu de Barcelona. Irantzu has recorded chamber concerts for the R.N.E., and has participated in a number of recordings dedicated to Catalan and Basque composers. At the moment she is involved in various projects: she is a member of the string quartet Teixidor and the El Teatre Instrumental (orchestra specialized in XVIII-century music), and collaborates with the baroque orchestra Europa Galante directed by Fabio Biondi.
Pepe Morales Luna is a specialist in both medieval and oriental plucked string instruments. His interest in Sufi music and traditional and classical music from the Near East, prompted him to study plucked string instruments from those with masters such as Haig Yazdjian, Yurdal Tokcan and Gürsel Torun, among others, in Morocco, Greece and Turkey. His work with medieval music starts with his collaboration with the ensemble Sendebar. Thereafter, he dedicates himself to the rigorous reconstruction of playing techniques of plucked string instruments such as the citole and the lute from the Romanesque and Gothic periods and the physical reconstruction of such instruments. He is a member of the Persian classical music group Barbod, and collaborated with the Algerian singer Neila Benbey and the Iranian tar player Parham Nassehpoor.
Cristina Alís Raurich studied piano with Irina Pochekina and Stanislav Pochekin (Liceu’s Conservatory, Barcelona), Gennady Dzubenko (Escola Luthier d’Arts Musicals, Barcelona) and Naum Grubert (Royal Conservatorium, The Hague). In The Netherlands Cristina entered the field of medieval music studying Latin, Ars Nova and Medieval Music Analysis with Sasha Zamler-Carhart. Her interest in this type of music led her to the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basel, Switzerland) where she studied medieval and renaissance music and keyboards (clavicimbalum, clavicytherium and organetto) with Corina Marti. Cristina is member of “Rhenanum Ensemble”, “Le Souvenir” and “Hamelin Consort” (awarded in the Förderpreis Alte Musik 2012 – Saarbrücken, Germany). Cristina is also a assistent director and faculty member of the International Course on Medieval Performance at Besalú (Catalonia).