The Mannes Camerata was a chamber music ensemble established in 1981 that consisted of faculty and undergraduate and graduate students in the Historical Performance and Opera programs at the Mannes College of Music, as well as Mannes graduates and young professional singers and instrumentalists in the field of early music. The group was founded by musicologist and medieval music expert Paul C. Echols and specialized in staged theatrical and concert performances of repertoire from the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods.

Paul Echols (1944-1994) received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University and did further graduate study in musicology at New York University, where he became director of the Collegium Musicum, the school’s historical performance ensemble, in 1976. Echols joined the Early Music faculty of the Mannes College of Music in 1981, forming the Mannes Camerata for the purpose of performing early period works, and for the study of early musical styles by student performers. In addition to his post as director of the Mannes Camerata, Echols was the director of the Mannes Opera Ensemble from 1987 to 1994, during which time he directed or conducted several Baroque operas, including some in their American premieres, but also 18th, 19th, and 20th century operas as well. Echols remained director of the Mannes Camerata until his death of a brain tumor in 1994 at the age of 50.

Under Echols’ leadership, the Mannes Camerata performed a number of rarely heard works, including John Eccles’s Semele (1706), Marco da Gagliano’s La Dafne (1608), and Jacopo Peri’s Euridice (1600), the earliest operatic score still in existence. After Echols’s death, the Camerata was led by founding member Dongsok Shin until 1997, John Norris from 1997 to 1998, and, in a more limited scope, by Mannes Opera Director Joseph Colaneri from 1998 to 2003.

References

Course Catalogs. “Mannes College of Music.” College of Performing Arts Course Catalog Collection. 1916-2006. The New School Archives Digital Collections, New York, New York.

“The Mannes Camerata Performs Semele.” The New School Observer 14, no. 2 (March 1993): 7. https://digitalarchives.library.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/NS050601_Observ_199303.

Holland, Bernard. “New Troupe at Mannes Offers Rare Old Opera.” The New York Times, May 21 1982. https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/21/arts/new-troupe-at-mannes-offers-rare-old-opera.html.

“Paul C. Echols, 50, Musicologist, Dies.” The New York Times, September 27, 1994. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/27/obituaries/paul-c-echols-50-musicologist-dies.html.

Rockwell, John. “Music: Dramas by Mannes Camerata.” The New York Times, January 14, 1985. https://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/14/arts/music-dramas-by-mannes-camerata.html.