Wendy Gillespie (Month of Maying and Marginalia) was inexplicably attracted to renaissance polyphony long before she knew either word.  A string player since childhood, she began playing the viola da gamba as an undergraduate. Wendy has performed on five continents, mostly as a founding member of Fretwork and long-time member of Phantasm, both ensembles of violas da gamba, but also as a bass viol soloist and not least as a very willing continuo player. She has explored medieval music on the vielle with the Ensemble Sequentia, Elizabethan Enterprise, and others, more recently specializing in renaissance viols and early notation with Nota Bene. Wendy can be heard on more than 100 commercially released recordings, sharing three Gramophone awards, several Gramophone and Grammy nominations, and two Grands Prix du Disque with colleagues.

In 2011, Wendy received Early Music America’s Thomas Binkley Award and in 2012 a Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement Award. She is Past President of the Viola da Gamba Society of America. After 32 years on its faculty, Gillespie graduated in 2017 to Professor Emeritus at what is now called the Historical Performance Institute at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, Bloomington IN. She often wonders how we got projected so far into the future.