Ensemble Nusmido

Ensemble Nusmido specialises in the performance of medi­ eval and Renaissance music. The ensemble’s repertoire covers the main stages of medieval music, from Gregorian chant to the vocal polyphony of the early sixteenth century. Having studied together with Dr Rebecca Stewart and Maurice van Lieshout in Holland, the four musicians set out to defend a particular kind of performance practice. They sing and play exclusively from the original notation of any given period, perform solely on copies of period instruments, and use historical solmisation techniques to apprehend melody and counterpoint in a ‘modal’ way. As would have been the case for musicians of the time, the members of Ensemble Nusmido perform interchangeably as singers and instrumentalists, whereby the human voice, in natural alliance with the acoustics of its surroundings, stands in central focus. From here on, the aim is to reach, through flexible tone production, a most intense contrapuntal inter­ action of the voices in which text declamation becomes a supporting element of the music. The name Nusmido derives from the famous organum Viderunt Omnes written in Paris by a member of the Notre Dame school. In one of the many clausulae that were com­ posed for the word ‘Dominus’, the syllables and the notes of the cantus firmus appear backwards – ‘Nus­mi­do’.