The Sweets of Love – songs for two voices and Renaissance lute – Good Pennyworths share a variety of solos and duets that highlight the many facets of love.  The music was composed by prominent artists at the time Shakespeare was writing his plays, often setting the verses of poets and playwrights to music as well as writing their own texts.  Come and enjoy the music and poetry of John Dowland, Thomas Campion, Alfonso Ferrabosco and others, respected artists who entertained in the courts and manor houses of England and Europe.

2014-18 Concert Performances

Both touching and humorous, Passing By…describes the journeys of a modern day troubadour.

This entertainment for the parlor features Renaissance lute songs, songs from Shakespeare’s plays, traditional folk ballads and classics from the 1960s, plus words from Shakespeare and contemporary poets.

Garald Farnham has entertained children and adults on five continents with his Renaissance spirit and song. Drawing from these experiences, he has created this spontaneous evening of stories and songs.

Love is but a Jest: Songs for Lovers and Fools – Although the lute was primarily an instrument that thrived during the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, with imagination our quartet has realized accompaniments for music from later periods.  Using a theme based on minstrelsy and foolery, we have drawn together a concert that not only embraces Renaissance lute songs by John Dowland and his contemporaries, but also Medieval songs, Classical songs by Mendelssohn and Rossini, several songs by early American composers and some contemporary songs by Billy Taylor, Stephen Sondheim and Simon and Garfunkel.  Audiences go away with the pleasure of hearing music they have heard in other venues accompanied by the sweet sonorities of the lute.

A Pennyworth of Christmas – A Yuletide classic that gets better each year.  In this concert we broaden our usual Renaissance and Elizabethan repertoire to explore a quilt of carols and winter holiday songs.  We make sure to include some ancient and lessor known carols with interesting histories, some cherished favorites from the 18th & 19th centuries, some Appalachian and folk tunes, plus English translations of carols from other countries, and modern favorites that can be given a Renaissance twist.  We also look for songs that we feel would especially (and unexpectedly) benefit from a lute accompaniment.  Sometimes we incorporate surprise moments of poetry, from Christmas trees on subway trains to Dylan Thomas’ whirling wordscapes of Welsh boyhood. These songs and lyrics give us hope.  They inspire us in our darkest moments.  They make us think about what’s important in life.  Audience members frequently comment that they were surprised by how personally meaningful the concert was for them.  That’s the highest compliment we could wish for.

Songs From Shakespeare: True Love Never Did Run Smooth is a concert of Shakespearean proportions! A staged, fully-scripted concert theater piece, Songs from Shakespeare explores universal truths: love’s messes, life’s heartbreaks and the laughter that sees us through. Working from a creative concept framed by Garald Farnham and Alane Marco (ensemble member 2007-2011) and NYC dramaturg and stage director Katherine Harte-DeCoux, Artistic Director of Mortal Folly Theatre, with songs researched and curated by Garald Farnham, our bonny Kate Harte-DeCoux developed a new script from Shakespeare’s own words in which the songs take center stage–and even provide the main plot twists. By intertwining lines from many different Shakespeare plays and sonnets, she has used Shakespeare’s songs and words to create three completely new overlapping story arcs for four performers, and a completely fresh experience of his words for audiences. Shakespeare fans become utterly engrossed hearing familiar lines spoken in new situations, while novices are simply bowled over by discovering how much of the real music still exists for these lyrics. Uniformly, audiences have told us they were so swept up and carried along by the stories, they didn’t want it to end. Production requirements: four chairs or two benches, a 16’x20′ playing area and light. (No curtain or lighting grid necessary.)

Love! Lust! Longing… Loss – an Elizabethan Romp – In the late 1500s and early 1600s, the lute songs, ballads, theatre songs and pub songs in this program were the “pop music” of their day, a musical language known to all classes of society, from courtiers to commoners.  As singer/actors, we use every tool at our disposal to give historically-informed performances that are not bloodless copies, but are rich and alive with meaning, humor and drama, as well as musical artistry.  We perform the songs in such a way that modern listeners can more readily understand the nuances of the poetry and the stories told therein.  Your audiences will come away with a sense of the richness and range of popular music during the renaissance – from bawdy tales of soldiers and wenches to heartfelt love songs to tongue-in-cheek lovelorn laments and political satires.

A special thanks to Glenn Hahn and the fine folks at Jordan Lutheran Church in Orefield,  PA  who came out to make our concert a joy and a success! What an extraordinary reception they served after the concert. From the oysters to the cider a l’orange, we were spoiled, and enjoyed the fine company. This was the debut of our new Christmas program, and performing it in the acoustical gem that is Jordan Lutheran’s sanctuary was truly moving.

Join us for our fifth annual Pennyworth of Christmas concerts in New York and Pennsylvania. Performance dates are:

December 2, 2012 4:00pm – Orefield, PA

December 15, 2012 8:00pm – New York

January 5, 2013 7:00pm – Swarthmore, PA

Christopher spoke with Columbus, Ohio music columnist Jim Fischer about our new concert, “Love is but a Jest,” which we’re performing this Friday for Early Music in Columbus. Check out Christopher’s interview here.

Lutenist Garald Farnham was interviewed by music critic Robert Plylar for The Observer newspapers in advance of our Chautauqua concert and master class to be given this month.

Click here to read Observer Today article