The Ensemble Ambrosius biography

Ensemble Ambrosius was formed in summer 1995, as three early music students -cellist Olli Virtaperko and harpsichordists Ere Lievonen and Jonte Knif - performed Frank Zappa's Uncle Meat at the final concert of an early music course.

Though all three were Zappa-enthusiastics, the event was ment to be a one-time musical joke, rather than a begining of an ambitious workshop of contemporary music. However, being encouraged by the warm reception of the audience, the three Zappaists asked a baroque oboist Jasu Moisio to join them, thus forming a company of musicians later named as "Ensemble Ambrosius". As there was no music available for the bizarre combination of two harpsichords, baroque oboe and baroque cello, the Ambrosians needed to compose and arrange all their material themselves.

Between summer 1995 and spring 1997 Olli Virtaperko and Ere Lievonen prepared material for Ensemble Ambrosius, and the group had its first public performance in Imatra on Sunday the 8th June 1997. The four-member Ensemble Ambrosius toured in Finland between 97-98, performing own music, harpsichord solo compositions and Frank Zappa's music.

The Ensemble Ambrosius of year 2002 being twice as large as the 97-98 band (with instruments like chamber organ, baroque violin, archlute, baroque bassoon and percussions), it seems very hard to understand how it was possible to perform such massive Zappa classics as Inca Roads, Echidna's Arf (of You) and Alien Orifice in those days, with that very limited combination of instruments. At some point of year 1998 it became clear that the possibilities of two harpsichords, baroque oboe and baroque cello were fully exploited. The band began to seek new instruments to make its sound richer and fuller.

In year 1999 Ensemble Ambrosius got three new members, the violinist Matti Vanhamäki, the baroque bassoon player Jani Sunnarborg and the luteist Tuukka Terho. In addition to their substantial musical potential and skills, an important timbral change was made by replacing the other harpsichord with chamber organ. By the time of summer 1999 Olli and Ere had arranged over 50 minutes of Zappa's music for Ensemble Ambrosius. As the group's most important event that year - the concert at Time of Music festival in Viitasaari - involved their whole Zappa-program, the group was exceptionally well-prepared for recording the Zappa repertoire later that year.

The Zappa Album was recorded in August 1999 and it was realeased by Swedish BIS records in October 2000, being their best-seller of the season. As the concept of Ensemble Ambrosius has always had three main emphasis - Zappa, modern classical and own, ethno-jazz-classical-oriented music - it was a natural choice not to record another Zappa-cd immediately after The Zappa Album. Instead, the group concentrated on Olli's and Jonte's compositions and recorded their second album, Metrix, in year 2001.

Metrix introduced two new Ambrosians: percussionist Ricardo Padilla, who joined the group in year 2000 and Pilvikki Virtaperko, who temporarily replaced The Netherlands-based Ere Lievonen. Jasu Moisio had left the group shortly after the realease of The Zappa Album. Metrix involves neither baroque oboe nor baroque violin, as Matti Vanhamäki worked intensly with The Ostrabotnian Chamber Orchestra during the recording periods of Metrix. Instead, Metrix uses new melody instruments, such as renaissance bagpipe and shawm, and a vast selection of Ricardo's acoustic percussion instruments and a dulcimer, played by the versatile Jonte Knif. The record was produced by Olli & Jonte and released through own record label, Ambrosius Entertainment, in February 2002.

Recently, Ensemble Ambrosius has made two notable radio performances - a live concert broadcast for Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE from group's concert in Helsinki in November 2001 and a concert at The Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, in February 2002 which was broadcasted by BBC at the end of March. By the time of the Edinburgh concert, Ensemble Ambrosius had grown to an eight-piece group with new members Anni Haapaniemi (baroque oboe) and Janne Nisonen (baroque violin). With this large group the band is currently working on new material, of which some will be recorded in August 2002 and performed in their next public performance in Tampere-talo, on the 30th of August, 2002.

Olli Virtaperko, May 2002