THE GOOD PENNYWORTHS, a vocal ensemble with lute accompaniment from NYC, was founded in 2007 to explore lute songs and traditional folk ballads with dramatic flair. The group’s concert programs feature quartets, duets and solo songs, engagingly staged to bring out the laughter and passion contained in these songs. In addition to the full-length concert Love! Lust! Longing… Loss, the group has also created A Pennyworth of Christmas, a celebration of holiday songs ranging from Medieval carols to modern favorites given a Renaissance twist. The 2011 edition toured to Ohio in December. Their most ambitious work to date, Songs From Shakespeare: True Love Never Did Run Smooth, was taken on its first tour to the Lute Society of America’s Biannual Festival in June 2010 and toured again to the Boston Early Music Festival in June 2011. It features a full-length script adapted entirely from Shakespeare text in which each song is connected to the next in an overall story arc. The script was adapted from Shakespeare’s text by Katherine Harte-DeCoux, Artistic Director of Mortal Folly Theatre, who also staged the concert/theater piece. The Lute Society of America’s Quarterly Journal praised them for their “depth in topic and vocal drama” and called their work “engaging for eye, ear, mind and heart… A rich performance that deserves to be heard far and wide.”
In 2009, they made their Boston Early Music Festival debut, and released a full-length studio album entitled Love! Lust! Longing… Loss – an Elizabethan Romp. They have performed for the Lute Society of America, Early Music in Columbus, Washington & Lee University, Eastern Carolina University School of Music and have toured in New England, the Midwest and the Southeast.
Garald Farnham Artistic Director (Baritone & Lutes) has entertained children and adults on four continents with his Renaissance spirit and song. He began collecting and studying lute songs in his 20s, while performing them in Shakespeare plays. For 15 years, Garald studied lute with renowned lutenist Patrick O’Brien. He has served as Musical Director for Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, The Tempest at North Shore Music Theatre and The Winter’s Tale Off-Off-Broadway. He also wrote and produced two scripted, staged concerts featuring Shakespeare songs Off-Off-Broadway. He currently serves as Treasurer of the Lute Society of America and is a graduate of Capital University’s Conservatory of Music in Columbus, Ohio.
Tiffany Bizup (Soprano) is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) where she earned her bachelors degree in vocal performance under the guidance of Patricia McCaffrey. While at MSM, Tiffany studied both classical and musical theater styles of singing. She has had the pleasure of performing with the International Institute of Vocal Arts (IIVA) in Chiari, Italy as well as many venues in New York City and Pennsylvania. Highlight roles include Damigella in L’incoronazione di Poppea (IIVA), Norina in scenes from Don Pasquale (IIVA and MSM), Sophie in scenes from Der Rosenkavalier (MSM) and Kim McAfee in Bye Bye Birdie (Zion Opera Workshop). Some of her most recent endeavors have included working with the Martina Arroyo Foundation in New York City, and forming the Tiffany Bizup Quartet, a jazz ensemble which performed at UnWined at Symphony Space. For more about Tiffany, please visit www.tiffanybizup.com.
Laura Campbell (Soprano) – photo and bio to come
Kirsten Kane (Mezzo Soprano) A native of northern Canada, mezzo-soprano Kirsten Kane sings with the choruses of the NY Philharmonic, the Little Orchestra Society, the NY Choral Artists, Mostly Mozart, and the Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. She appeared with the NY Philharmonic as a Chicken in Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, and her operatic roles have included Nicklausse/The Muse with Regina Opera; Prince Charming, Madame de la Haltière, Mercedes and Marcellina with NY Lyric Opera Theatre; Cherubino with Eastern Festival Opera; Romeo, Dorabella, Siebel and Hansel with Northport Opera; La Badessa with Opera Co. of Brooklyn; and Mere Jeanne with One World Symphony. She has also performed with the NY Virtuoso Singers, Belcanto at Caramoor, and the Royal Concertgebouw. As a concert soloist, her performances have included Haydn’s Schöpfungsmesse (NY Cantata Singers), Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis (Choral Symphony Society), Handel’s Messiah (Ensemble Sepia Orchestra) and Debussy’s Trois Chansons (Hudson Valley Singers). She appeared in recital at the Fordham-at-Four concert series, and presented a program of French salon songs for the Jewish Museum’s exhibit of Sarah Bernhardt. At the NY Fringe Festival, Kirsten premiered the role of Kathleen in Susan Stoderl’s opera A.F.R.A.I.D. She has also done ongoing work in the Mitzvah Technique of movement of Nehemia Cohen as taught by Dianne Chapitis, and has brought this exploration into her performances. Kirsten is a graduate of the Victoria Conservatory of Music in British Columbia, Canada.
Timothy Joyce (Tenor) is a graduate of the University of Connecticut with a BFA in Acting. Over the past five years, he has toured to New York, Connecticut, Virginia, Indiana, Nebraska, Montana, Alaska, Midwest and up and down the East Coast. Favorite credits include three summers at Bigfork Summer Playhouse in Montana performing shows like Kiss Me, Kate (Petruchio), Beauty and the Beast (Gaston), Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Seussical, The Wiz, and Urinetown, two summers in the-middle-of-nowhere-Alaska performing The Music of Denali, a midwest tour of A Christmas Carol with Nebraska Theater Caravan, Robin Hood with the Berkshire Theater Festival and Plaid Tidings with Amish Acres. Offstage, he has directed for the Bigfork Playhouse Children’s Theater, and the Alaska Shakespeare Festival. He is also one of the “regulars” in the monthly Our Bar series of original theater at Failte Irish Whiskey Bar in NYC. On Sundays, he sings with the Advent Lutheran Chorale in NYC. When not doing any of these things, you will find him enthusiastically experimenting in cooking with his fiancee, Laura Campbell.
Christopher Preston Thompson (Tenor) is a versatile singer/actor whose experience ranges from Shakespearean roles to musical theatre to opera. NYC credits include world premieres of The Theory of Everything as Anton with Encompass New Opera Theatre, and The Pig, the Farmer, and the Artist as the Artist with Chesky Audio, Inc. – a new operatic satire by multiple Grammy nominee, David Chesky. Critics of The Pig… said of the performance “splendid… giving us a grand, entertaining, hilarious, and highly intelligent evening.” (nytheatre.com) Other NYC credits include the roles of Remendado in Carmen, and Mercury in Orpheus in the Underworld with Bronx Opera Company, the premiere of Rubiyaat by Mohammed Fairouz with Musical Chairs Chamber Ensemble, Prince Edward and Lord Stanley in Richard III with Nicu’s Spoon Theatre, and Snout in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble. Regional credits include Goro in Madama Butterfly with Opera Company of the Highlands, Dr. Cajus in Falstaff at Crested Butte Music Festival, Basilio in Le Nozze di Figaro with Northern Dutchess Symphony, and Cymbeline in Cymbeline with Great River Shakespeare Festival. Recent performances include Schrecker’s Der Ferne Klang at the Bard Summerscape Music Festival and a remount of The Pig… in the 2010 NYC Fringe Festival.
