Piffaro Opens Season in October

Philadelphia's own Piffaro, the Renaissance Band opens its 41st season with Tools of the Trade: Exploring the Renaissance Musician's Arsenal, a celebration of the instruments that shaped the sound of the Renaissance era. Live concerts take place October 10–12, 2025 in Philadelphia and Wilmington, followed by a professionally produced concert video available for streaming worldwide October 24–Nov 6. Audiences are invited onstage after the concert to see the instruments up close. 

Philadelphia is home to many one-of-a-kind treasures, among which is the largest active collection of professional Renaissance wind instruments in the U.S., brought to life by the virtuosic multi-instrumentalists of Piffaro. Call it “the other Philadelphia Sound.” 

“When we're on tour,” says artistic director Priscilla Herreid, “audiences crowd the stage after concerts to see these instruments up close. Most have never seen anything like them! For so many of us, this sound is what first drew us into early music. There's nothing else like it.”

A typical Piffaro program explores the sound of a particular time and place, such as Germany, the Italian city of Ferrara, and colonial-era Mexico (all coming later this season). Tools of the Trade puts the spotlight on the instruments themselves. For the first time, Piffaro's full collection of over 50 meticulously reconstructed Renaissance instruments will take center stage.

The program will begin with the earliest appearance of the alta capella (or “loud band”), with music by Guillaume Dufay performed on bold shawms, trumpets and trombones. The mood then shifts to more intimate music written for the gentler sounds of lutes, flutes, douçaines, hurdy-gurdies and recorders. 

Dulcians, Deutsche schalmei, krumhorns, bagpipes, pipe & tabor, percussion and the theorbo will be gradually layered in, culminating in the glorious textures of the late Renaissance and early Baroque – a final medley from Thoinot Arbeau's Orchesography that gets every instrument in.