Profeti della Quinta

Ensemble Profeti della Quinta was founded in the Galilee region of Israel by the bass singer and harpsichordist Elam Rotem, and is based in Basel, Switzerland, where its members undertook further studies of early music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Focusing on repertoire from the 16th and early 17th centuries, the ensemble aims to create vivid and expressive performances for audiences today while, at the same time, considering period performance practices. Another goal of the ensemble is performing and researching hitherto neglected works, such as Emilio de' Cavalieri's Lamentations (1600) and Salomone Rossi's Hashirim asher li'Shlomo (1623), the first publication of polyphony in Hebrew.

In 2011 the ensemble won the York Early Music Young Artists Competition, and has since performed in Europe, Israel, North-America, China and Japan. It gave concerts in prominent festivals and venues such as Oude Muziek Festival Utrecht, Beethovenfest Bonn, London Festival of Baroque Music, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New-York and the Shanghai concert hall.

The ensemble’s CD recordings are warmly received by the public and critics alike. These include recordings dedicated to the music by Salomone Rossi (two CDs), Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Orlando di Lasso, Claudio Monteverdi, the anonymous composer Carlo G, Phillipe Verdelot and others. Profeti della Quinta is also featured in the documentary film Hebreo: The Search for Salomone Rossi by Joseph Rochlitz, filmed in Mantua, Italy. The ensemble has premiered and recorded two large-scale works composed especially for it by Elam Rotem: the biblical drama Joseph and his Brethren and the motet collection Quia amore langueo. Both works employ Hebrew texts taken directly from the bible, and were composed in the musical language of the early Italian Baroque.