Mark Cudek, Director

The Peabody Renaissance Ensemble was founded in 1988 by Mark Cudek. PRE is comprised of students and staff of Peabody and the Johns Hopkins University as well as guests from the Baltimore-Washington early music community. PRE consists of a vocal ensemble and instrumental consorts of violas da gamba, recorders, lutes and guitars, and percussion.  In recent years students have also performed with the ensemble on Renaissance violin, vielle, dulcian, cornetto, and sackbut. PRE alumni have performed professionally with Apollo’s Fire (the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra), the Baltimore Consort, Folger Consort, Hesperus, Les Arts Florissant, Les Delices, Montreal Baroque, Musica Pacifica, New York Collegium, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Piffaro, the Waverly Consort and many other leading American early music ensembles. PRE has a loyal audience, performs regularly in Leith Symington Griswold Hall, and has recorded several CDs.

“The opening selections…received stylish, atmospheric performances. Mark Cudek, founding director of the Peabody Renaissance Ensemble, has clearly imparted to his instrumentalists and singers not just a respect for historical detail, but a keen sense of the expressive possibilities in this repertoire.” – Baltimore Sun, March 27, 2007