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Allison Monroe

she/her

  • Director of the Five College Early Music Program and Lecturer in Music
Allison Monroe

Allison Monroe specializes in Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical violin and viola, viols, vielle, rebec, medieval harp, and voice. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Historical Performance Practice from Case Western Reserve University, where she directed the Collegium Museum from 2018 to 2023. She is a co-founder and Director of Programming for Trobár, a trio of voices and instruments dedicated to bringing medieval music to modern audiences. Dr. Monroe also performs regularly with Newberry Consort, Boston Camerata, Apollo’s Fire, Les Délices, and numerous other early music orchestras and ensembles.

As a historical performer, Allison combines performance with scholarly research. Her research interests currently center on medieval song accompaniment, self-accompaniment and the lira da braccio, and early seventeenth-century English violin bands. She was the Artistic Director for, and a performer on, Trobár's release _Fair and Princely Branches_ (2020), an album of music for the Jacobean princes. Trobár's next album, _Il Dit / Elle Dit_, will explore the theme of dialogue through an album of early fifteenth-century French music, including works by Machaut, Binchois, Dufay, and Fontaine.

Education

  • D.M.A., Case Western Reserve University
  • M.M., Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama
  • B.A., University of Maryland, College Park

Recent Publications

Monroe, A. (2024) Trobár's first album, Il Dit Elle Dit: Love & Dialogue in the World of Christine de Pizan, received a favorable review in Early Music America Magazine. The review highlighted its "exquisite intonation," "delightful lilt," and "clear," "vital," and "well-balanced" sound, and quoted extensively from Artistic Director Allison Monroe's liner notes.

Medieval music ensemble Trobár just released their first album, Il Dit Elle Dit: Love and Dialogue in the World of Christine de Pizan, featuring Allison Monroe (Artistic Director), Elena Mullins (Executive Director), Karin Weston, and Tis Kaoru Zamler-Carhart. The album is now available on all major streaming platforms or via their website: https://www.trobarmedieval.org/album

Recent Honors

Monroe, A. (2024) As the Artistic Director of Trobár, Allison co-curated and co-directed performances of “I Sing a New Song” with Liza Malamut, Artistic Director of the venerated Newberry Consort, featuring a slate of some of the country’s best medieval musicians. They performed in both Cleveland and Chicago, to enthusiastic audiences, and .

Monroe, A. (2023) An episode of Les Délices' SalonEra featured a program that I created as Artistic Director for medieval music ensemble Trobár. Interviews with myself and another performer are interspersed with recordings of a May 2023 performance.

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