Jolle Greenleaf
& Hank Heijink
TENET Vocal Artists Soprano Jolle Greenleaf and Lutenist Hank Heijink performed in The TANK on September 7, 2019. In a concert entitled Echoes of the Ages, this dynamic duo explored themes and variations for lute and voice, playing music from the Renaissance and early Baroque periods.
Reverberation has always inspired awe in human beings, and the architectural spaces of the Renaissance and Baroque periods of Europe – beautiful churches and palaces of stone and stained glass and vaulted ceilings – were profoundly resonant, echoing places.
Composers of that day played with this echo and created echoing effects in their music, and writers of song incorporated echo into their poetry and librettos. For this concert, Jolle and Hank chose music especially composed to highlight the echo.
Recorded and mixed by Jeremiah Moore, for The TANK.
Soprano Jolle Greenleaf is one of today’s foremost figures in the field of early music. Balancing a career as a leading soloist and an innovative impressaria, she is in great demand both as a guest artist and as the artistic director of TENET Vocal Artists, a premiere New York City-based ensemble specializing in early music.
Ms. Greenleaf has been hailed by The New York Times as “a golden soprano” and “a major force in the New York early music-scene.” She is a celebrated interpreter of the music of Bach, Buxtehude, Handel, Purcell and, most notably, Claudio Monteverdi. Her “crisp, sensuous voice” (The New Yorker) has been praised for its “purity and beguiling naturalness” (The Oregonian) and “intriguing beauty” (The Boston Globe).
“A treasured staple in New York,” Ms. Greenleaf was named the artistic director of TENET Vocal Artists in 2009, where she sings and directs the ensemble in repertoire spanning the Middle Ages to the present day. Her flair for imaginative programming has been lauded by The New York Times as “adventurous and expressive,” as well as “smart, varied and not entirely early.” She spearheaded TENET’s Green Mountain Project, whose annual performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 have been universally acclaimed. In January 2020, she is organizing a tour in Venice Italy for the Green Mountain Project’s finale performance on TENET Vocal Artists series.
Ms. Greenleaf passionately fosters the spirit of collaboration and shared ideas. She regularly invites national and international musicians to team up for performances with her and others from the New York-based early music community.
Lutenist Hank Heijink has performed all over the world, playing with leading ensembles such as the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra with Ton Koopman, Orchestre d’Auvergne, Mark Morris Dance Group, and the Wooster Group. As a member of the European Union Baroque Orchestra, he toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Scandinavia. He has collaborated with Richard Egarr, Nigel North, and Christina Pluhar, among others, and has taken part in productions including Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, John Blow’s Venus and Adonis, Cavalli’s La Didone, and Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, among others. As a regular member of TENET, Mr. Heijink can be heard on the ensemble’s entire discography and as a soloist on UNO + ONE: Italia Nostra and The Secret Lover. A native of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, he holds a performance degree from the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, a master of arts degree in computer science, and a Ph.D. in social sciences.